Patterico's Pontifications

10/19/2017

Gen. Kelly’s Presser Today

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:53 pm



I’m a little tired of this topic, but John Kelly having made his appearance today, I feel honor-bound to do a post about it and hopefully put the matter to bed. Here’s the video:

Kelly says his first recommendation was not to call families. It is good that he told the country this. That provides some crucial context for Trump’s actions, his inaction, and his timing.

I have to say: the bit in which Kelly professes to be “stunned” that a Congresswoman “listened in” on the call left me cold. Allahpundit has already explained why, saving me the effort:

When he accuses Wilson of listening in on the call, he makes it sound like she was surreptitiously eavesdropping on another receiver. Wilson was in a limo with Johnson’s family when the call came. The call was put on speakerphone, presumably at Mrs. Johnson’s request so that everyone else there could hear it too. The family wanted Wilson to hear it, apparently. She wasn’t just Johnson’s congresswoman either. He had graduated from her “Role Models of Excellence” program so she knew him and his family. She wasn’t with them in the limo in hopes that Trump might happen to call at that moment and she might score a political point.

So all this “I was stunned and brokenhearted…it stuns me, absolutely stuns me” stuff just leaves me utterly unmoved. This is who the family had with them at the time. Gen. Kelly has moral authority regarding his own son’s death, but he has no real moral authority to dictate whom the family happens to have present when a call like that is made. That’s their choice, not his — and anyway, there is zero indication that they knew the call was coming and arranged for the Congresswoman to be there for that purpose. She was there because she has a relationship with the family. So all this “stunned stunned stunned” stuff strikes me as political BS. The stuff about women and religion being sacred, but not sacred any more, also struck me coming from the Chief of Staff for Donald “I don’t ask for forgiveness” “grab them by the pussy” Trump. A little less sanctimony from a guy in that particular position would be more convincing.

Kelly was smart to focus on the unlikable Congresswoman with the funny hats. I thought Kelly made a pretty good case that she has a history of acting the fool. His story about the evil James Comey making a nice speech followed by cowboy hat woman boasting about political stuff makes her sound like the clown that she indeed appears to be. In that sense, she is the mirror image of Trump: a fool from a different political perspective.

Anyway, focusing on the Congresswoman was politically deft, as it helped obscure the fact that Kelly was implicitly taking a slap at the family for having the Congresswoman there, as well as at the Congresswoman for being there. He is also disagreeing with the family, not just the Congresswoman, about Trump’s tone, as Allahpundit notes:

Most significantly, it wasn’t just Wilson who objected to Trump’s tone during the phone call. It was Johnson’s own mother, who told WaPo that Wilson’s account of the call was accurate and that “President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband.” Kelly’s account of the call doesn’t even square with Trump’s. Trump, remember, claimed Wilson “totally fabricated” what he supposedly said to Mrs. Johnson. Kelly, on the other hand, essentially says that Wilson’s account was accurate. She’s not guilty of fabrication but of putting an unfairly negative spin on a comment Trump made about the risks of military service.

Indeed. Let’s talk a little about the substance of the call, as related by Kelly. Here is my transcript of what he said:

That’s he’s a brave man. A fallen hero. He knew what he was getting himself into, because he enlisted. There’s no reason to enlist. He enlisted. And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, with exactly the people he wanted to be with, when his life was taken.

The Congresswoman’s claim was that Trump said “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” The controversial part of that was “he knew what he signed up for.” Trump said “I didn’t say what that congresswoman said. Didn’t say it at all.” And Kelly said that Trump had said: “He knew what he was getting himself into.” The words sounded nice and reasonable coming out of Kelly’s mouth — question whether they sounded as nice coming out the oaf Trump’s mouth — but those were the words. It wasn’t a fabrication. It was a difference of perspective.

“President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Sgt. Johnson’s mom said. As someone reminded me recently, President Bush would sometimes get an earful from distraught moms or other relatives. It happens. It could be that Trump was trying his best and ran into people who didn’t want to hear it. It could be that he garbled the message or got defensive. Or it could be a little of both. I will note this aspect of the Congresswoman’s account was not addressed by Gen. Kelly:

“When she got off the phone, she said, ‘He didn’t even know his name. He kept calling him, ‘Your guy,’” Ms. Wilson said of Ms. Johnson. “He was calling the fallen soldier, ‘Your guy.’ And he never said his name because he did not know his name. So he kept saying, ‘Your guy. Your guy. Your guy.’ And that was devastating to her.”

My, but that does sound . . . Trumpy. It sounds, in fact, similar to Trump’s inability to speak the widow’s name (Myeshia Johnson) when he falsely accused the Congresswoman of fabricating her accusations out of whole cloth.

I note that there were no questions about whether the general was offended at Trump’s citing the death of Gen. Kelly’s son to make a cheap political point. When I heard that, I was stunned. Stunned. Stunned. Stunned. I wonder if Gen. Kelly was stunned stunned stunned, but nobody asked him.

Anyway, as a political observer I’d say Kelly did Trump a favor today. Kelly showed a seriousness and gravity of which Trump is incapable. It’s nice to know that Trump has surrounded himself with a fella who seems mostly smart and capable and who demonstrates real leadership. That was the first time I have seen Kelly speak, and I was mostly impressed.

And stunned.

Now let us hopefully never speak of this again.

UPDATE: Interesting. Funny Hat CongessCritter Wilson credibly alleges that Kelly screwed up the story about the dedication of the federal building:

Kelly criticized Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson for claiming “she got the money” for the new building during the 2015 ceremony while he and others in the audience were focused on the heroism of agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove, killed during a 1986 shootout with bank robbers south of Miami.

Thursday night, Wilson said Kelly got the story flat-out wrong. In fact, she said Washington approved the money before she was even in Congress. The legislation she sponsored named the building after Grogan and Dove, a law enacted just days before the ceremony.

“He shouldn’t be able to just say that, that is terrible,” Wilson said of Kelly’s remarks in the White House briefing room, the latest volley in the controversy over Trump’s condolence call to a military widow from Miami Gardens, an area Wilson represents. “This has become totally personal.”

At the dedication ceremony, James Comey, then director of the FBI, lauded Wilson’s legislation, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama three days before the April 2015 ceremony.

“Rep. Wilson truly did the impossible, and we are eternally grateful,” Comey said in his remarks.

Huh. If she remembers that incident better than he — and it seems like perhaps she does, given the timing and comments made by Comey and others (read the whole piece) — then maybe she remembers this call better too. After all, it was one call of four for Kelly.

I’m stunned.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

509 Responses to “Gen. Kelly’s Presser Today”

  1. Dingaling

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. i love it when allahpundit explains for me!

    i can get on with the rest of my day

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  3. i take a sip and say a prayer wait for a shootin star and stare off at the headlights on the highway

    #goldstarhotties

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. Tempest in a toecap.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. This whole “let’s only take questions from people who know a Gold Star family” thing irritated me too. I can’t explain why. It just did.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  6. yeah that was douchey

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  7. The widow was in a limo with her good friend the bat-spit congresswoman when the call came in, and they INTENDED to be offended. It was one of those “you people” moments where a phase is taken in the worst possible light by those that want to pretend offense. If it wasn’t that phrase, it would ahve been another.

    The fact that they were together when the call came in implies a similarity of intent, and makes the later “confirmation” by Mrs Johnson nearly meaningless.

    No wonder Trump was incensed. He should have STFU, of course, but he is what he is.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  8. #goldstarconfessions

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  9. Why so the libel should stick, like the French proverb about viscous animals.

    In and of itself like the misrepresenting of ‘mission accomplished’ this is a small thing, but like the butterfly effect it can snowball, so ten years down the line, kayla Mueller’s head is being cut, by the folks that an utterly cold blooded chief execytivr dismissed as the IV team.

    narciso (d1f714)

  10. But of course this can be seen through any set of glasses. I feel like I’m in the middle, as I would rather Trump was not President and I won’t weep for him should something change that.

    However, I refuse to believe any damn thing I’m told that casts him in a bad light, nor will I pay much attention to his amen corner of raving lunatics. A good number Trump’s supporters are so off-the-wall that they make Trump look good in comparison.

    So, all of this dander about Trump did this and Trump did that that the Democrat war room piles on the airwaves are lost on me. SOmetimes I think it’s to fill the airwaves with as much BS as Trump throws up himself.

    Meanwhile, you can search the NY Times for the word “uranium” and there are no hits this week.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  11. the airwaves are lost on me

    could you be dead?

    you always were two steps ahead.

    you found some better place

    #goldstarafterdark (pensive)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  12. The Congresswoman’s claim was that Trump said “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.

    Context is everything, and so is accuracy. Neither of which the Congresswoman gives a rat’s ass about.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  13. context is everything

    she was a lonely widow woman

    hellbent to make it on her own

    til she came to me one evening

    hot cup of coffee and a smile

    #goldstarbeginnings

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  14. Now let us hopefully never speak of this again.

    I don’t know if that can be done. This is of such major importance to the left in their portrayal of Trump and his “followers” (i.e. anybody not a NeverTrumper or general Trump hater) it may never be laid to rest. Just as Trump stupidly saying he could grab a pussy years ago makes him as much a degenerate as Carlos Danger or Harvey Weinstein, this tactless comment shows him as a white supremacist and a bigot the likes of which have not been seen since the glory days of the KKK.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  15. Nah, Hoagie, just his usual self.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  16. We’ve seen this riadshow, ten twelve years ago, Casey sheehan and Nicholas berg, in a bizarre artefact of the era, law and order actually trued to make the zarquawi character less of a ghul than he really was.

    But the grishenko show must go on, and who better than the key stone cops who bungled the initial kompromat.

    narciso (d1f714)

  17. No wonder Trump was incensed. He should have STFU, of course, but he is what he is.

    Grade him on a curve, I think is what you’re saying — the curve being based on his normal behavior. If he acts like a jackass tomorrow, but no more so than usual, say nothing, because he is a jackass. B minus at worst. If he acts normal, whereas he would normally be a jackass, why that is awesome! An A minus performance for a Bush or Obama becomes an A++++ OH WE’RE SO PROUUUD OF YOU!

    This may not be what you are suggesting but I think it’s what many are. This is a political blog that discusses the issues of the day, much like a teacher gives grades, and I feel like a teacher being asked to stop giving F’s for a failing performance because come on we all know the kid is a failure so cut him some slack.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  18. if you wanted the sky i would write across the sky in letters that would soar

    1000 FEET HIGH

    #goldstargoodbyes

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  19. Ya know Patterico, I voted for George H W Bush, Bob Dole, George W Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney and finally Donald Trump all for one reason and one reason only. Their opponents were so much worse than they were I could allow myself no other choice. As far as I’m concerned all those guys were RINO’s but hey, there were only two people running who would win so I made my choice. Trump is a tactless buffoon and he is dishonest and of questionable character. And so is every other single solitary politician on both sides. They’re just a lot more polished about it when they butt bag us so we don’t notice as much. Oh, and the press loves them and hates Trump. that alone will get me to vote for him again in 2020.

    The only way we’re gonna break the leftist stronghold on our culture, media, education, the arts and now the NFL and military is to stuff the Supreme Court, load the federal bench with conservatives and have a president that makes the left so phucking crazy it can’t think straight enough to field a decent candidate. As long as Trump has them wearing vagina suits and pussy hats, kneeling for the anthem, and worrying if he sent a check to somebody they aren’t seriously trying to win the White House. That pleases me.

    Rev.Hoagie® (6bbda7)

  20. What is considered an a or a b, whar words suffice at that moment, to quench such a loss.

    narciso (d1f714)

  21. The stuff about women and religion being sacred, but not sacred any more, also struck me coming from the Chief of Staff for Donald “I don’t ask for forgiveness” “grab them by the pussy” Trump.

    The words:

    You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country….Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer.

    don’t sound like something that would have been said to curry Trump’s favor.

    Reposted from the other thread:

    Congresswoman Frederica Wilson to Politico, about what White House Chief of Staff Kelly said today:

    Kelly’s trying to keep his job. He’ll say anything,

    I also heard a soundbyte in which she said Trump didn’t remember his name (rather than not know his name)

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0) — 10/19/2017 @ 8:13 pm

    ——————————————————————————————————————-

    Addendum: Her evidence – that Trump kept saying “your guy” – led me more to think that Trump wasn’t sure if they were legally married.

    It should have been “your husband” and that’s maybe better than saying the name. “Your guy” indicates some doubt about them being married.

    Unless, he’s really, really, that inarticulate, or just used to saying, whenever something like this this comes up, “your guy.”.

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  22. No one seems to be suggesting you cut the Clintons some slack or grade them on a curve, and I certainly don’t think you should. But if Trump’s words don’t matter, then maybe we should revisit the meaning of “is.”

    DRJ (0280d9)

  23. I would also stammer trying to say La David or Myeshia [had to check the spelling twice for that second one], or giggle, but what’s so hard about Sgt. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson?

    nk (dbc370)

  24. #goldstarexistential

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  25. Addendum: Her evidence – that Trump kept saying “your guy” – led me more to think that Trump wasn’t sure if they were legally married.

    A less lovable Archie Bunker.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  26. Rest assured the usual suspects had their stories already written you want find politic
    Bozos or Carlos slim making corrections except maybe next week on page a 23,

    narciso (d1f714)

  27. 23. nk (dbc370) — 10/19/2017 @ 8:45 pm

    but what’s so hard about Sgt. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson?

    Mrs. Johnson might sound OK (although Trump may avoided the whole issue) but speaking of “Sgt. Johnson” wuld be speaking of him in the third person, and that”s not good.

    Your guy though, somehow doesn’t sound right.

    I suppose Trump didn’t say “your husband” because he wasn’t sure of the nature of the relationship, or possibly, perhaps, whom he was speaking to:
    .
    The widow? A sister? An aunt or cousin? A sister in law? Sgt Johnson’s baby mama?

    Who was on the other end of the line? This is something, maybe, he hadn’t verified.

    So he didn’t use her name, and he didn’t use wither his name or the relationship to the person he was speaking to..

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  28. UPDATE: Interesting. Funny Hat CongessCritter Wilson credibly alleges that Kelly screwed up the story about the dedication of the federal building:

    Kelly criticized Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson for claiming “she got the money” for the new building during the 2015 ceremony while he and others in the audience were focused on the heroism of agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove, killed during a 1986 shootout with bank robbers south of Miami.

    Thursday night, Wilson said Kelly got the story flat-out wrong. In fact, she said Washington approved the money before she was even in Congress. The legislation she sponsored named the building after Grogan and Dove, a law enacted just days before the ceremony.

    “He shouldn’t be able to just say that, that is terrible,” Wilson said of Kelly’s remarks in the White House briefing room, the latest volley in the controversy over Trump’s condolence call to a military widow from Miami Gardens, an area Wilson represents. “This has become totally personal.”

    At the dedication ceremony, James Comey, then director of the FBI, lauded Wilson’s legislation, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama three days before the April 2015 ceremony.

    “Rep. Wilson truly did the impossible, and we are eternally grateful,” Comey said in his remarks.

    Huh. If she remembers that incident better than he — and it seems like perhaps she does, given the timing and comments made by Comey and others (read the whole piece) — then maybe she remembers this call better too. After all, it was one call of four for Kelly.

    I’m stunned.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  29. truth be told kelly’s kind of a joke

    #goldstarinsider

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  30. I wouldn’t hang your hat on that:
    https://www.newsbusters.org/journalists/anita-kumar

    narciso (d1f714)

  31. The third priority takes chutzpah:
    https://wilson.house.gov/issues/foreign-affairs

    narciso (d1f714)

  32. Well at least that settles who the empty barrel was.

    crazy (d99a88)

  33. Growing up in Florida – with its tremendous cultural diversity – is excellent preparation for serving as an advocate for peace, justice, and human rights in Congress.

    #goldstarpaste-eater

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  34. Trump had better watch his step, I think. It looks like Earth has come out of the alternate space-time warp and is back to normal.

    nk (dbc370)

  35. ceptforthepopemaybeinrome

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  36. From the Orlando Sun Sentinel report, when the building was dedicated:

    Now called the Benjamin P. Grogan and Jerry L. Dove Federal Building, U.S. Rep. Frederica S. Wilson, D-Miami, was credited with pushing naming legislation through Congress in four weeks that was signed Tuesday by President Barack Obama in time for Friday’s ceremonies.

    “Rep. Wilson truly did the impossible, and we are eternally grateful,” FBI Director James Comey said.
    ***
    Among a bipartisan South Florida Congressional delegation were U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Carlos Curbleo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Wilson.

    U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, who leads the U.S. Southern Command, represented the military. From law enforcement were FBI Miami Special Agent in Charge George L. Piro and Wifredo Ferrer, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  37. I’m sorry the Cubs lost, nk.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  38. james comey lol

    corrupt p.o.s.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  39. Thank you, DRJ. I didn’t even watch the game. I was at my daughter’s choir recital. I look forward to the Astros giving both the Yankees and the Dodgers their comeuppance.

    nk (dbc370)

  40. The FBI building in Miramar (which was ultimately named for Grogan and Dove) was under construction in 2013. The contractor bids for the building were announced in 2010. Frederica Wilson joined Congress in 2011.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  41. He did what our Captain told him to do; he is the current CoS– and ‘knows what he signed up for.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  42. It may be a bi-coastal World Series this year, nk, but I’m pulling for the Astros. Ric Flair will call out the “Play Ball” (via video) if the ALCS goes to a Game 7.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  43. I still think that Trump and Kelly are trying to show respect to our fallen military heroes and their families, but being President means you have to worry about the big picture and the details. I don’t see much focus on details.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  44. #goldstarfallen

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  45. If I am sometimes bemused at accusations leveled at public schools, it’s because the selections tonight included:
    Wade In The Water
    Hallelujah, Amen! (Handel)
    Elijah
    Hallelujah (Cohen)
    Hosanna in Excelsis

    nk (dbc370)

  46. #goldstarshesaidtellmeareyouachristianchildisaidmaamiamtonight

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  47. @5. It was insular arrogance; he was not acting as a civilian CoS, just a brass.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  48. Yes she replaced kendrick meek, who Waldo employed the awan bros, another cover a pillow until its stops breathing story, she is the just the sort who would ban mockingbird and hick fin for good measure

    narciso (d1f714)

  49. Thank you, DRJ. I didn’t even watch the game. I was at my daughter’s choir recital. I look forward to the Astros giving both the Yankees and the Dodgers their comeuppance.

    nk (dbc370) — 10/19/2017 @ 9:29 pm

    You and Beldar are both wishing that.

    We shall see. I wouldn’t bet on it.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  50. Now, instead of turning this into yesterday’s story, Kelly may have given it another day of coverage. That is not good.

    DRJ (15874d)

  51. Important to note what this actually was and politicizing it should be thought a shameful thing. But if it can be fashioned into a hammer to bludgeon Trump, some will gladly pick the hammer up. It’s what they do best.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  52. #goldstarthisiswhygeneralstendtosuckintherealwhirl

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  53. Kelly is right. We’ve lost something in this country. He ticked off the list. I agree with his assessment.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  54. @50. He’s been Trumped already: our Captain tweeted another slam at Wilson tonight.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  55. That is the important pint, along with demoralizing American servicemen and encouraging the enemy. Because that what they have been doing since around 1965, not the boatpeople not year zero. Nor the rise of islanuc state ever getsxin the way. And fredericka Wilson follows the script blaming fund rather than Islamic terrorists re Orlando.

    narciso (d1f714)

  56. #goldstaronlymemoriesremain

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  57. @52. =Haiku!= Gesundheit.

    Yet you watched ‘The Man Show’.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  58. ^53. Typo.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  59. This is why pubs spent 18 hours on two cconsecutive weeks pushing Ken burns. , might as well be made in Hanoi propaganda.

    narciso (d1f714)

  60. Unforced error. Trump did not listen to Kelly who told him not to make the phone calls. He bowed to the yammering of the media who he has reason to know hate him. Because …? My suspicion is that as much as he may seem to disdain them as fake news, he would love for them to love him, if even for a night or for an hour. Here’s Clint Eastwood on the subject in 11 seconds.

    nk (dbc370)

  61. @60. Call and response: ‘television generation’– he’s “a ratings man.”

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  62. 57… no asshole, I did not.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  63. we learned that maybe it’s time to stop fetishizing our tatters if they widders freak out when you call them in the limmer

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  64. Yes that would have worked, because there is no way the press would spin it into fear and contempt for the families of the fallen, did I miss the last 14 years.

    narciso (d1f714)

  65. 59… I agree, narciso. I watched about half of the first episode. That was enough for me. Although, I enjoyed his “Civil War” series, I find the rest of his work uninspired.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  66. Yet you watched ‘The Man Show’.

    cable’s for the lower classes anymore

    this would not include our Colonel

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  67. It struck me how stuck in amber circa 1975, when it was not widely known that halberstam was all wet, the book companion available are Walmart, is a disjointed mess that barely acknowledges. Oar and sorleys contributions, and not in footnotes

    narciso (d1f714)

  68. Moyar, the guy who discovered most of what were told about diem at the beginning and the phoenix projrxt, towards the end was wrong.

    narciso (d1f714)

  69. @62, =Haiku!= Gesundheit!

    So Trumpian! That can be repaired w/surgery, too- and covered under Obamacare.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  70. Congress appropriated $144 million for the Miami FBI building in 2010.

    Wilson was first elected to Congress in 2010.

    Construction began in 2012.

    The building was completed in the summer of 2015, and dedicated in September 2015.

    The final construction cost was $194 million.

    So, Congress appropriated $50 in additional construction funds between 2011 and 2015, while Cong. Wilson was serving in office.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  71. $50 million.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  72. 59. The series aired in the early ’80s on PBS- Vietnam- A Television History based on Stanley Karnow’s book was a better clinical narrative w/better sourced footage from international rresources and interviews, however access to the presidential audio tapes Burns used was more restricted then as were MacNamara’s papers and such. Most of the pressers w/the pair left the impression this was more a Lynn Novick-driven project than a Burns effort. It was thick going to watch it all– ana a little Peter Coyote goes a long way.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  73. @65 =Haiku!= Gesundheit! – ‘I find the rest of his work uninspired.’

    Beyond ‘The Civil War’… ‘The Statue of Liberty’… ‘The Brooklyn Bridge’… ‘Baseball’… ‘Jazz’… ‘The Roosevelts’.. ‘The Dust Bowl’ .. ‘The National Parks’… ‘Huey Long’… ‘Lewis & Clark’… ‘Prohibition’… and many more.

    Yeah, you be a ‘Man Show‘ viewer, for sure.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  74. 74 – yes, that’s what GSA asked for in 2009. In 2010 Cong appropriated $144 million.

    Shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  75. Well, actually…

    Here’s the contract for building construction:
    https://govtribe.com/contract/award/gs04p11bvc0027

    The total expense was $159.7m. If you look towards the bottom, you can see a list of 10 pages of adjustments, in reverse chronological order. The original contract amount was $144m, which you can see on page 10. I’m not a government contract expert, so you’re welcome to point out to me which of the modifications required congressional appropriation. I believe that none of them did.

    I’ve also seen reports in the news that the total cost was $194m, but I don’t know where that number comes from. So, again, you’re invited to show the congressional appropriation for that difference.

    Davethulhu (719fd1)

  76. I think Rep Wilson represented Miramar from 2011-2012, but not after that. It was redistricted effective 1/3/2013.

    DRJ (15874d)

  77. The GSA Acting Administrator attended the dedication and said the building came in “on time and on budget”:

    Final costs are expected to reach $194 million with final build-out remaining, falling under the $198 million budgeted for project site acquisition, design, construction, tenant improvements, and other services.

    It appears the building costs and build out were budgeted. I’m not sure there were overruns or additional appropriations.

    DRJ (15874d)

  78. TDS — when you watch Kelly’s press conference and come to the conclusion that Kelly was “stunned, stunned” that the family would have a Congresswoman in their car.

    How about this — Kelly was “stunned, stunned” that a person elected to Congress would not have the sense of propriety to understand that the phone call from the President was meant to be a personal conversation with the spouse and/or parents of the fallen soldier.

    “I was stunned, and brokenhearted over what I saw a member of Congress doing.”

    His words.

    “A member of Congress listened in on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife.”

    So, your being “utterly unmoved” because “That is who the family had with them at the time” simply screams TDS.

    That wasn’t his point. He didn’t fault the family for having the Congresswoman with them.

    He faulted the Congresswoman for not realizing her place — which was to not make herself part of the event.

    Who called the NYT and WaPo? You think the White House called them? You think the young wife of the fallen soldier called them?

    To say that Kelly was “dictating” through his moral authority who the family should have in the car is about as insulting a thing as I’ve read you write on this blog. You should ban yourself for such a ridiculous and scurrilus slur on Kelly.

    “…there is zero indication that they knew the call was coming and arranged for the Congresswoman to be there for that purpose. She was there because she has a relationship with the family.”

    WHERE in Kelly’s statement does he suggest this???

    I’ll tell you where — he doesn’t

    He wasn’t “stunned” she was in the car, and he didn’t suggest this was some kind of political prank pulled off by the family and the Congresswoman.

    His point was made clearly — to anyone not suffering from TDS — that he was unhappy the Congresswoman had inserted herself into what should have been a private conversation, and then mischaracterized what she heard in order to drive blaring headlines in the NYT and WaPo. Even if she was allowed to overhear the conversation because the family wanted it on speakerphone, the Congresswoman should still have respected the privacy of the act. That she didn’t was what Kelly is agitated about.

    “Kelly was implicitly taking a slap at the family for having the Congresswoman there.”

    WHAT WORDS OF KELLY’s IMPLIED THAT???? Quote him, and then justify how you claim that was the implication of his words.

    Re Trump’s reference to Kelly’s son’s death and Obama’s failure to call — do you think that if Kelly thought that was a “cheap political point” — your words — that he would have gone out to speak to the press and defend what Trump did yesterday?

    I’m hearted to know that a line prosecutor in the LA DA’s office thinks a retired Four Star Marine Corp General who headed up one of only nine Combatant Commands in the Department of Defense, as well as a Marine Corps Expeditionary Force in combat, seems “mostly smart and capable”.

    Just not worthy of belief.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  79. 78 — the initial approrpriation was $144 million in the 2010 budget. The additional $50 million came in subsequent appropriations after Wilson was elected.

    Including $750,000 for a massive Cedar sculpture that ended up putting 20 people in the hospital because of allergic reactions they had to the cedar dust coming off the structure.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  80. In that sense, she is the mirror image of Trump: a fool from a different political perspective.

    The TDS is still strong here.

    I quit reading at that.

    Mike K (b3dd19)

  81. I understand the building appropriation was $144M but does that mean there was no appropriation for build out until after it was built? If that is how it works, then why do you think Wilson asked for the build-out funds, since the building was not in her district after 2012?

    DRJ (15874d)

  82. The original GSA appropriation request was $190 million in 2010, before Wilson took office.

    DRJ (15874d)

  83. Wrong link, sorry. Here is the correct Link.

    DRJ (15874d)

  84. I’m having link problems. Try this.

    DRJ (15874d)

  85. I’m hearted to know that a line prosecutor in the LA DA’s office thinks a retired Four Star Marine Corp General who headed up one of only nine Combatant Commands in the Department of Defense, as well as a Marine Corps Expeditionary Force in combat, seems “mostly smart and capable”.

    Just not worthy of belief.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 10/20/2017 @ 4:14 am

    Why do commenters persist in bringing the host’s job to the conversation? People who do this should be moderated.

    DRJ (15874d)

  86. SWC, Obama outranked all the generals and had more responsibility. Was it ‘not worthy of belief’ when people criticized him?

    Also, what’s gotten into you the last few days? Taking it out on your host is beneath you, whatever the real problem is. Leave his job out of it, like DRJ has suggested.

    I don’t even care about the Trump aspect of this.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  87. #goldstargoodmornings!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  88. I doubt there are truly good mornings for Gold Star families, hf.

    DRJ (15874d)

  89. you gotta laugh a little cry a little

    until the clouds roll by a little!

    that’s the story of

    that’s the glory of love!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  90. Oy vey! Trumpkins remind me of the Obamabots who called every criticism of Obama racist. It made sense. Obama’s only qualification for the Presidency which mattered to them was his race. Likewise, to Trumpkins, Trump can do no wrong because they elected him to right all wrongs and their hopes will not be dashed, dash it! And I guess this extends to his staff and cabinet, too. Mr. President, being perfect, can only have perfect people close to him. Ipso facto, you TDSers!

    nk (dbc370)

  91. Some people are very passionate about Obama and Trump. It reminds me of the way some people viewed JFK. Maybe they all have charisma and that energizes people.

    DRJ (15874d)

  92. Mr. President, being perfect, can only have perfect people close to him.

    this is a nun squeeter

    President Trump’s perfection serves to expose minute flaws in others what would otherwise go unnoticed

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  93. oh my goodness ann althouse who is smart and pretty found an oddly compelling video for to watch

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  94. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
    Martin Luther King

    … clouds judgment and destroys objectivity. We don’t have to agree that’s what debate is for but in a debate fueled by hatred only hatred wins. Alinsky didn’t dedicate Rules for Radicals to Satan by accident. Hating Trump, Obama, Bush or anyone else leads to the same dead end.

    crazy (d99a88)

  95. Charisma? I’m more inclined to call it idolatry, in the original sense of idol — image. They worship the image they have of him.

    nk (dbc370)

  96. I don’t mind them giving him the benefit of the doubt. I want to do that, too, if for no other reason than that we’re stuck with him and what else can we do? But their attitude seems to be: “Trump, I believe! Smite the unbelievers!”

    nk (dbc370)

  97. Because Obama susmissed men much mire capable like mccrystal, using the Hastings gambit, mattis, petraus using jehs leak, Lynn who told him Al queda was not dead and Islamic state was on the march.

    narciso (d1f714)

  98. Dismissed, more, interestingly Hastings subsequently started investigating director Brendan.

    narciso (d1f714)

  99. We’ve always had that in politics and life, nk. I bet there were people who idolized George Washington and every President since, not to mention strong leaders like MLK. I understand believing in people and ideas, but it’s the desire to smite the unbelievers that surprises me.

    DRJ (15874d)

  100. Good point, nk. I love comments that make me see things in a different way.

    DRJ (15874d)

  101. nk @97. I totally agree. Everything I said about hatred applies equally to idolatry. Thanks for pointing out.

    crazy (d99a88)

  102. That’s a good point, too, crazy. And it’s nice to have this discussion. Thank you both.

    DRJ (15874d)

  103. Has her tax lien, been resolved yet:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/921370181758324736?p=v

    narciso (d1f714)

  104. Rhinestone Cowboy Cowpie

    I’ve been plyin’ my trade so long
    Singin’ the same old song
    I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of K Street
    Where hustle’s the name of the game
    And nice guys believe sh*theeled devils are feelin’ their pain
    There’s been a load of wheelin’ dealin’
    On the deals that I’ve been sealin’
    And I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me
    Like a rhinestone cowpie
    Layin’ flat in the dirt in a star-spangled rodeo
    Like a rhinestone cowpie
    Gettin’ pats on teh poo-poo from people I don’t even know
    And stardom comin’ over the phone

    Well, I really don’t mind the rain
    And a smile can hide I’m insane
    Just a clown that’s ridin’ the train what’s bringin’ teh gravy
    And I dream of the things I’ll do
    Limo driver and a thousand dollars tucked inside my cooze
    There’s been a load of wheelin’ dealin’
    On the deals that I’ve been sealin’
    And I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me
    Like a rhinestone cowpie
    layin’ flat in the dirt in a star-spangled rodeo
    Rhinestone cowpie
    Gettin’ pats on teh poo-poo from people I don’t even know
    And stardom comin’ over the phone
    Like a rhinestone cowpie
    Layin’ flat in the dirt in a star-spangled rodeo
    Like a rhinestone cowpie
    Gettin’ pats on teh poo-poo from people I don’t even know
    Like a rhinestone cowpie
    Layin’ flat in the dirt in a star-spangled rodeo

    Colonel Campbell (2601c0)

  105. Advice for presidents from military families they’ve tried to console

    Kari Cowan, 55, of Clearwater, said she was pleasantly surprised when Bush sent her a letter after her husband, Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Aaron Cowan, 37, was killed in a helicopter training accident in South Korea on Feb. 26, 2005.

    “I thought it was a beautiful tribute,” Cowan said. “I prefer the letter to a phone call, because last night, I pulled all the letters out and it was like reading them for the first time.”

    In the age of twitter we’re losing the value of a heartfelt handwritten letter. Perhaps the WH will consider this going forward. My family lost my mother’s brother in Korea a few weeks before he was scheduled to rotate home. Pulling out the letters is a powerful experience.

    This is all good advice.

    crazy (d99a88)

  106. Remember that scene in saving private Ryan, where general Marshall relates the passing of the other four Ryan siblings

    https://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/10/natasha-de-alencar-widow-of-army-staff.html

    narciso (d1f714)

  107. Perhaps those who invoke Patterico’s employment in their jabs at him should re-read his disclaimer on the right side of the page:

    The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. They are not made in any official capacity, and do not represent the opinions of the author’s employer.

    There is absolutely no reason to bring his line of work into this; it’s a lazy way to try to score points. If one wants to be critical of the poster, fine, have at it. But it needs to be focused on the post itself and the point of view presented. It seems to me that one’s profession should not be part of the equation, especially as the host has not specifically used it as a qualifier for his views in any way.

    Dana (023079)

  108. I’m hearted to know that a line prosecutor in the LA DA’s office thinks a retired Four Star Marine Corp General who headed up one of only nine Combatant Commands in the Department of Defense, as well as a Marine Corps Expeditionary Force in combat, seems “mostly smart and capable”.

    Just not worthy of belief.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 10/20/2017 @ 4:14 am

    Why do commenters persist in bringing the host’s job to the conversation? People who do this should be moderated.

    I appreciate this comment being brought to my attention, DRJ, but I’m not going to moderate shipwreckedcrew over it. It is unlike comments that suggest that I am bad at my job because of my political opinions, which are unacceptable and do merit moderation. Here, swc’s statement that he is “hearted” by my comments is intended to contrast the lowly nature of my job (in the eyes of swc) with the exalted nature of Gen. Kelly’s previous career. Non-lawyers should understand that Assistant U.S. Attorneys often have an elitist attitude about District Attorneys, considering themselves to be more prestigious and capable. It’s an attitude I’ve encountered before.

    It’s not a particularly relevant argument, though. In the past, if swc were to criticize, say, Preet Bharara, I personally would not make it a point to compare, say, the relative prestige of a U.S. Attorney’s Office in Hawaii with the office of the Southern District of New York. I would have simply addressed the merits of the claim. Because even a lowly “line prosecutor in the LA DA’s office” who has done nothing more than put several dozen gang members in prison for life for murder can justly criticize a great retired general (or even a President!), if that great retired general (or President!) has done something worthy of criticism.

    And Gen. Kelly made a couple of mistakes yesterday.

    First, his big gotcha with Frederica Wilson has backfired badly, because he got the facts utterly wrong. He accused her of taking credit for funding for the building, and ignoring the importance of the building’s dedicatees. Yet, swc’s fact-free speculation notwithstanding, I have seen zero evidence (remember evidence?) to support Kelly’s assertion about her boasting about getting funding for the building. Her actual accomplishment did indeed honor the FBI agents who had been killed in a gun battle. She managed to spearhead the passage of legislation ensuring that the building would be named for them. I watched last night her speech on the floor of the House in honor of the dedicatees. She has a goofy manner of delivery, but it was a very nice speech. I watched contemporaneous TV news reports of the dedication of the building. I saw nothing about her being involved in funding — and I saw numerous claims that the building came in under budget, within the original appropriation amount. Whether those reports are accurate or not, I can’t say definitively.

    But it appears that Gen. Kelly smeared Frederica Wilson with that story, which initially sounded so compelling — until the facts came in. From the facts I know, Gen. Kelly is not “worthy of belief” on this issue. Sad!

    Second, I was struck yesterday by the fact that Kelly repeatedly attacked the Congresswoman, not just for sharing the contents of the call (which I thought was the better line of attack) but also for listening to the call at all. Although swc would have the commentariat believe that Kelly did only the former, Kelly also did the latter. The video is at the head of this post. Kelly started out well, by focusing on Rep. Wilson’s public comments:

    I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing.

    But immediately the criticism focused on her merely for “listening in” on the conversation:

    A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife, and in his way tried to express that opinion — that he’s a brave man, a fallen hero, he knew what he was getting himself into because he enlisted. . . . It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred.

    Kelly didn’t just slam the Congresswoman for talking about the call publicly. He also slammed the Congresswoman just for listening in on the call. All the “TDS TDS TDS” blathering in the world cannot erase Gen. Kelly’s actual words. And those words unfairly fault the Congresswoman for merely being in the car when the call came in — an implicit slam at the family that allowed her to be there, and allowed her to listen to this “sacred” call. Nobody is focusing on that, just like nobody is focusing any longer on the way Trump exploited the death of Gen. Kelly’s son for a trivial moment of hoped-for political benefit. But it happened, and as a political commentator, I comment on it — because it put me off.

    I am genuinely irritated that I read swc’s comment. This is a perfect example of why I try to avoid his comments. He says things with a Great Air of Authority and in so doing tends to mislead the readership in material ways. I end up spending far too much of my valuable time refuting his bad facts just to get back to Square One. For example, I have spent so much time correcting the nonsense in his comment in this thread that there will be no post this morning. Instead, I will link y’all to the post I did at RedState late last night on the Senate passing a budget-busting budget.

    Since I have taken all this time and did read that comment, I will say to swc: you seem desperate for my attention for some reason. Evidently taking a swipe at my job was another of your ways of motivating other commenters to bring your Fantastic Points to my attention, to show how thoroughly you Destroyed Me with your repeated accusations of “TDS” and your distorted renditions of easily ascertainable facts. This is not the way to get my attention. There is a way to do it, as I previously told you in what I had genuinely hoped would be my last comment to you. Stop being abrasive, apologize for twisting my words, and indicate a desire to re-set the discussion on terms of mutual respect.

    I see you moving away from that, towards an attitude of contempt — the same sort of contempt I saw displayed by a post at Ace of Spades I read yesterday that slammed Allahpundit. It seems that those who defend Trump have adopted his abrasive, assholish attitude as The Way to Be Tough, and long-term online friendships give way to The New Toughness. It all makes me sad, honestly, and I think it further illustrates the catastrophic divide that Trump has not only exposed but deepened in the former Republican coalition. I have chosen my side and evidently you have chosen yours, and yours (and Ace’s) is the side of Telling Off The NeverTrumpers for Their TDS TDS TDS. Fine. If that is your attitude, just leave me alone then. Leave me alone. Stop trying to get my attention. Stop wasting my time. Thank you.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  109. Crazy hat lady thinks she’s now a superstar. That’s all this was about. Just another narcissist making everything all about her.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  110. I see you moving away from that, towards an attitude of contempt — the same sort of contempt I saw displayed by a post at Ace of Spades I read yesterday that slammed Allahpundit. It seems that those who defend Trump have adopted his abrasive, assholish attitude as The Way to Be Tough, and long-term online friendships give way to The New Toughness. It all makes me sad, honestly, and I think it further illustrates the catastrophic divide that Trump has not only exposed but deepened in the former Republican coalition. I have chosen my side and evidently you have chosen yours, and yours (and Ace’s) is the side of Telling Off The NeverTrumpers for Their TDS TDS TDS. Fine. If that is your attitude, just leave me alone then. Leave me alone. Stop trying to get my attention. Stop wasting my time. Thank you.

    Patterico (115b1f) — 10/20/2017 @ 7:41 am

    I think both sides should reflect on this part of your post as it is particularly applicable to both the pro and anti-Trump sides. Both act like they are correct about everything and the other side is wrong and possibly evil.

    But really reflect. Don’t just say “yep, I’m right.”

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  111. From a White House press release: a transcript of Sarah Sanders responding to a question about another aspect of the call:

    Q Sarah, Congresswoman Wilson — I talked to her a couple of hours ago, and she says that this is the President’s Benghazi. She says that Jackson was — and his Green Berets were — in Niger trying to find out information and doing a mission about Boko Haram. And she said that his transmitter was still emitting for two days — emitting a signal when he was located. And she says that makes no sense why he wasn’t located.

    What say you about that? And also, what do you say about her comment that he did not know, and the wife, the widow, said that the President did not know his name? He kept saying, “Your guy, your guy.”

    MS. SANDERS: Just because the President said “your guy,” I don’t think that means that he doesn’t know his name. As the President stated, the hardest job he has is making calls like that. I think it is appalling what the congresswoman has done and the way that she’s politicized this issue, and the way that she is trying to make this about something that it isn’t.

    She confirms he said “your guy.” As goofy as she is, Rep. Wilson’s account is looking more credible all the time. The part about how Trump said Sgt. Johnson signed up for this? Corroborated by Kelly after Trump said Rep. Wilson had “fabricated” the account. The part about him saying “your guy”? Corroborated by his own press secretary. The part where his Chief of Staff told a story about Rep. Wilson taking credit for funding the building and being contemptuous of the memory of FBI agents? Belied by all known evidence.

    Looks like my “ridiculous and scurrilus [sic] slur on Kelly” is nothing of the sort.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  112. I would consider apologizing for mentioning swc’s comment and distracting you from posting. But I won’t because I think your comment was as important, interesting, and enlightening as any post.

    DRJ (15874d)

  113. Not only that Patterico…why did they only have light weapons and no armor..?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  114. crazy at 108,

    That certainly makes a lot of sense. Besides a letter allows for a grieving family to respond privately and by themselves, without any pressure or expectation to respond immediately like a phone call from the president would demand. Further, I would guess that over time, re-reading such a letter would offer different levels of comfort and take on a different hue. It just seems the more compassionate route to go. Thus it makes me eternally wish that the President had listened to Kelly’s original advice from the get-go and not made the call. He needs to take advice from those who have insight and knowledge into that which he doesn’t. This speaks to his stubbornness in believing that his decision even in a very delicate, personal matter that would only impact one family, not an entire nation, is the right one, in spite of having no first-hand experience and being advised by one with first-hand knowledge and wisdom about an unfamiliar and heartbreaking process.

    As one who has a son currently on a long deployment on the other side of the world, I am very appreciative that Kelly is there to advise the President on the best way to approach such a situation. I would just wish that the president listened to him.

    Dana (023079)

  115. She confirms he said “your guy.”

    Sounds to me like a something stipulated for sake of argument.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  116. But it appears that Gen. Kelly smeared Frederica Wilson with that story, which initially sounded so compelling — until the facts came in.

    HUGE entitlement issues and a demonstrable lack of integrity

    this is why hiring career military people for roles in civilian government is a seriously questionable idea

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  117. This is wurst than…

    BENGHAAAAAZZZZZEEEEE!!!

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  118. narciso @109. Watching that 3 min and 50 second phone call to another Gold Star wife is enlightening time well spent.

    crazy (d99a88)

  119. This is wurst than…

    BENGHAAAAAZZZZZEEEEE!!!

    lol i would say say it’s borderline impossible to fetishize niger to the degree fox news did on BENGHAAAAAZZZZZEEEEE

    that was one of a kind agitprop

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  120. say

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  121. Unless she herself had been listening to the call, or had some kind of authoritative transcript she knew about, and I don’t know if she was, it seems very clear she was responding to the reporters assertion of what the words were rather than “corroborating” it, because where did her knowledge of the original words come from?

    And this is the problem every time an issue like this comes up, everyone has different interpretations of what was meant by what was said, because what was said was expressed vaguely or colloquially or both.

    An analogous situation was Obama’s “my Mulsim faith”, which was not an admission to belonging to the ummah but a statement about a misperception other people had about him.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  122. just because General Kelly is trashy doesn’t mean sleazy Frederica isn’t trashy too in her own special way

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  123. I would consider apologizing for mentioning swc’s comment and distracting you from posting. But I won’t because I think your comment was as important, interesting, and enlightening as any post.

    Well, thanks, and of course I’m not upset at you for bringing it to my attention. I’m upset at the writer of the comment for his attitude.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  124. Dana @117. As do I. We are fortunate indeed to have men like your son and I pray for his successful and speedy return. Know that you may be separated by miles but you’re always with him.

    crazy (d99a88)

  125. : Just because the President said “your guy,” I don’t think that means that he doesn’t know his name.

    To me, that is not how a stipulation for the same of argument would be phrased. It would be conditional, e.g., “If the President said …” or “Assuming the President said …”. “Just because” suggests it happened but is not something the speaker, Sanders, thinks is determinative.

    DRJ (15874d)

  126. Kudos to Dana, her son and their family. God bless you all.

    DRJ (15874d)

  127. @DRJ: It would be conditional, e.g., “If the President said …”

    If you were writing an article or giving prepared remarks it certainly would, but in speaking off the cuff people do talk this way, I’m sure we have both heard it many times.

    You cannot “corroborate” unless you have your own knowledge. Does she have her own knowledge of the words spoken? If she didn’t, then she can’t have be considered to have corroborated it merely because she repeated the reporter’s words back.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  128. And this is the problem every time an issue like this comes up, everyone has different interpretations of what was meant by what was said, because what was said was expressed vaguely or colloquially or both.

    Courts deal with this every day. That’s why we have words and they are supposed to have specific meanings. Presidents have speechwriters and advisers to help them choose their words because communicating with the public and the world is so important. Or not.

    DRJ (15874d)

  129. Her job as Press Secretary is to gather information, validate it, and provide it to the public and the press. This story has been out there for a couple of days. Sanders should be speaking from informed knowledge, not guessing.

    DRJ (15874d)

  130. @DRJ: Presidents have speechwriters and advisers to help them choose their words

    Yes, they do, but the press conferences are a little different, and we can all think of many occasions when those words were misinterpreted.

    Obama’s “my Muslim faith” and Bush’s “Republic of Taiwan” are obvious examples, as was April Glaspie’s “no opinion” which Saddam Hussein so badly misinterpreted.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  131. @DRJ:Sanders should be speaking from informed knowledge, not guessing.

    Yeah, she should be, but that’s not evidence she was, it’s only evidence that humans are imperfect.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  132. Well, then, Obama wasn’t perfect so let’s don’t hold him to his words. Ditto Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    Is that really your position, Frederick? Because that’s where it leads. No one can be criticized if the default is that everyone is human and humans err. Human frailty exists but listening to what people say and trying to understand that should be the default.

    DRJ (15874d)

  133. what are we bickering about at the end of the day sleazy frederica politicized a rather pedestrian tragedy and humiliated a gold star family and then we had a pompous general make an ass of himself on the tv and everyone’s losing sight of not just how lucky we are hillary clinton isn’t president but that in our American journey we get to walk for a time with President Trump, and it’s a beautiful interlude indeed

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  134. @DRJ:Is that really your position, Frederick?

    No. Thank you for asking for the clarification.

    I’m saying only that off-the-cuff remarks are not necessarily indicative of what is in the speaker’s mind, and you know this as well as I. My words say only this, and nothing more.

    listening to what people say and trying to understand

    Exactly what I am doing.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  135. Exactly what I am doing.

    Then you’re doing it wrong.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  136. A couple of other interesting points about Kelly’s presser.

    1. He says he told Trump three days ago how to make condolence calls.

    2. He said Trump “bravely” made the calls. “Bravely.”

    Huh and huh.

    Patterico (e76608)

  137. a lot of this is just minutiae and folderol if you ask me

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  138. BeenBurned has cirrhosis of teh liverwurst.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  139. Its like groundhog day. Allover again, you don’t realize the attempt to illegitimizr any offensive response to Islamic extremism?

    narciso (d1f714)

  140. the attempt to illegitimize any offensive response to Islamic extremism

    you lost me on this one

    the military has a freer hand to kill and otherwise discipline wayward islamic pickleheads than it’s ever had in the whole history of forever

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  141. We often end up understanding each other and sometimes even agreeing, Frederick, but it’s certainly a painful process.

    DRJ (15874d)

  142. My feeling — and I admit it’s a feeling so I could certainly be wrong — is that some people are upset with Patterico because he has admitted he hates Trump, even though he regrets feeling that way. Perhaps they feel he should not criticize Trump because his hatred makes him biased.

    But we all have biases and we still get to have opinions. Kudos to Patterico for sharing his views with us honestly so we can weigh what he says with full information. How many people here have been as forthcoming about their biases?

    DRJ (15874d)

  143. Of course they would have to arrest a 10th of all the members in the body, as accessory.

    narciso (d1f714)

  144. me

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  145. Should we ignore or discount every commenter who hates Obama and/or the Clintons, because hate makes your opinions unreliable? If so, that’s a lot of potential comments.

    DRJ (15874d)

  146. @DRJ:Perhaps they feel he should not criticize Trump because his hatred makes him biased.

    My observation–though really you should ask them–is that their feeling is that Patterico is too credulous when it comes to anti-Trump media narratives.

    There are only a handful of comments, mostly drive-bys and happyfeet, that ever suggest that criticism of Trump is inherently illegitimate.

    Ben burn thinks he gets the reaction he does here because he’s bringing us facts we don’t want to know. This makes him less effective because he does not understand the way audience feels–in his case because he doesn’t really want to, he thinks of the rest of us as a collection of invidious stereotypes. Some pro-Trump commenters are also doing this, as are some of the anti-Trump commenters.

    I try not to impute motives and opinions to people by association, but I probably fail at this more than I like to acknowledge.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  147. So Islamic state is being routed, more by Iran’s proxies than the peshmerga, in keeping with a promise, so its time for any ghraib, cyndi sheehan, perhaps some new dispirited Richard Clarke wannabe. To emerge

    narciso (d1f714)

  148. Frederick:

    You way overestimate the value of commentators. Generally, for every comment ten lurkers are about.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  149. And it is striking how w’s learning curve is below optimum, I guess that why I preferred Cheney and rumsfeld.

    narciso (d1f714)

  150. Wear your bias like a skinsuit. Own it.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  151. @narcisco:And it is striking how w’s learning curve is below optimum, I guess that why I preferred Cheney and rumsfeld.

    Honestly, narcisco, I think that a free people should be so ordered that we could literally elect a plastic statue as President of the United States and have it make little difference. This is because I think the national government should have a very, very limited role in the lives of ordinary Americans. If people want, say, single-payer health care, plenty of US states are larger than nations that have single-payer systems and smaller states of the same mind can pool together.

    Of course, the people most opposite politically also, though they don’t admit it, want things so ordered that national elections don’t matter–they think our lives should be run by the national government through the administrative state, and that the administrative state should be completely unaffected by elections.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  152. My feeling is that people feel personally insulted by Patterio’s hatred of Trump. They seem to believe that if Patterico has judged Trump to be deficient in almost every way possible and admittedly hates him, then because they either support Trump or are resigned to him and don’t feel the same way about him that Patterico does, then he is by extension judging them in the same way. But that’s not accurate. What he has made clear, repeatedly so, is that he objects to those same people mischaracterizing what he is saying and the basic dishonesty involved in order to defend Trump.

    Again, it seems to boil down to a question of why was it okay to criticize Obama, but it’s far less okay to criticize Trump? If the right is unwilling to hold Trump’s feet to the fire to the degree that the right held (or attempted to hold) Obama’s feet to the fire, then this is why the likelihood of having Trump in another 4 years increases.

    Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. It’s good to have a contrarian amongst us (even if we disagree with his tactics). It sharpens our thinking, challenges us, and ends up either enlightening us or reinforcing what we already think. I don’t want to be part of any cliched “echo chamber,” and I would be utterly discouraged if that’s what this place became. Diversity of thought should be a thing.

    Dana (023079)

  153. Frederick,

    Look at the masthead. This blog was primarily founded to watch the LA Times, and it did that religiously for more than a decade and sporadically in recent years. It is laughable to suggest that Patterico is easily fooled by media narratives.

    DRJ (15874d)

  154. My feeling is that people feel personally insulted by Patterio’s hatred of Trump.

    I think they just wonder how Mr. P can get so many things right and yet be so wrong about President Trump.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  155. Full video of Frederica Wilson’s speech in 2015 at the new FBI building here.

    Dana (023079)

  156. Perhaps Patterico should do some polls, one that asks if it’s ok for him to criticize Trump — Yes or No — and another that asks how much criticism is allowed.

    DRJ (15874d)

  157. My feeling is that people feel personally insulted by Patterio’s hatred of Trump. They seem to believe that if Patterico has judged Trump to be deficient in almost every way possible and admittedly hates him, then because they either support Trump or are resigned to him and don’t feel the same way about him that Patterico does, then he is by extension judging them in the same way. But that’s not accurate. What he has made clear, repeatedly so, is that he objects to those same people mischaracterizing what he is saying and the basic dishonesty involved in order to defend Trump.

    Again, it seems to boil down to a question of why was it okay to criticize Obama, but it’s far less okay to criticize Trump? If the right is unwilling to hold Trump’s feet to the fire to the degree that the right held (or attempted to hold) Obama’s feet to the fire, then this is why the likelihood of having Trump in another 4 years increases.

    Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. It’s good to have a contrarian amongst us (even if we disagree with his tactics). It sharpens our thinking, challenges us, and ends up either enlightening us or reinforcing what we already think. I don’t want to be part of any cliched “echo chamber,” and I would be utterly discouraged if that’s what this place became. Diversity of thought should be a thing.

    Dana (023079) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:08 am

    His criticism of Trump is far more personal and vehemently full of hatred towards Trump than he ever did of Obama. And Obama has done far more damage to this nation than Trump could do short of nuking the world.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  158. His criticism of Trump is far more personal and vehemently full of hatred towards Trump than he ever did of Obama. And Obama has done far more damage to this nation than Trump could do short of nuking the world.

    Just look at what Trump has accomplished in 10 months. He’s only just begun..

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  159. well said Mr. Rob

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  160. So he didn’t hate Obama enough, NJRob?

    DRJ (15874d)

  161. Orlando Sun Sentinel, from Dana’s link:

    Exclusive video of Frederica Wilson’s 2015 speech contradicts W.H. chief of staff

    DRJ (15874d)

  162. I don’t think tremendous loathing and disrespect equates to hate.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  163. I don’t know what Kelly heard that day but the video doesn’t show anything like what he said. It makes me wonder if he is confusing it with another event.

    DRJ (15874d)

  164. this made me cry

    what a sweet and big-hearted guy

    just a good good person

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  165. @DRJ: It is laughable to suggest that Patterico is easily fooled by media narratives.

    That wasn’t what I said. “Too credulous when it comes to anti-Trump media narratives” is my assessment of what some commenters perceive; and I did not say that I personally believe this to be the case. You are welcome to ask these commenters if my characterization is closer to what they think, or if yours is.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  166. I know, DRJ, it’s odd, isn’t it? Either he got confused about the events, or didn’t do his homework. Either way, it weakens his attack.

    Dana (023079)

  167. this is disturbing

    antifa’s got invisibility superpowers now and they hate america

    this just gets better and better

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  168. So he didn’t hate Obama enough, NJRob?

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:41 am

    Still not reading what I wrote. I said he’s make it far more personal when it comes to Trump. He was able to separate the man and the policy with Obama and praised Obama’s personal life as well as tried to give him the benefit of the doubt when circumstances arose.

    It’s the opposite with Trump because of how he feels towards the man. He’s willing to look at everything in the worst like, only grudging gives credit to the man while circumstances arose while still taking the opportunity to attack him at the exact same time.

    If he treated Trump the same way he treated Obama, the atmosphere in here would be a lot healthier.

    I comment much less now because it’s become too personal, not about policy, but about the man. Not worth getting personal.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  169. My transcript of the last few minutes of Wilson’s speech that day:

    “So today it is our patriotic duty to lift up Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove from the street in South Florida and place their names and pictures high, where the world will know that we are proud of their sacrifice, their sacrifice for our nation.

    It is only fitting that their names should be placed on the same mantle with the letters F B I, because Special Agents Grogan and Dove embody the sacred motto for which the Agency has become known. Please repeat it after me: Fidelity (crowd repeats Fidelity), Bravery (crowd repeats Bravery), Integrity (crowd repeats Integrity).

    God bless you. God bless the FBI. And God bless America. Thank you.”

    DRJ (15874d)

  170. Still not reading what I wrote. I said he’s make it far more personal when it comes to Trump. He was able to separate the man and the policy with Obama and praised Obama’s personal life as well as tried to give him the benefit of the doubt when circumstances arose.

    It’s the opposite with Trump because of how he feels towards the man. He’s willing to look at everything in the worst light, only grudging gives credit to the man when circumstances arose while still taking the opportunity to attack him at the exact same time.

    If he treated Trump the same way he treated Obama, the atmosphere in here would be a lot healthier.

    I comment much less now because it’s become too personal, not about policy, but about the man. Not worth getting personal.

    NJRob (7f4bec) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:59 am

    Corrected a couple of obvious errors. Sorry.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  171. Then you can take that into account when you read his words, NJRob. The question isn’t why Patterico feels as he does, the question is why do his commenters take it so personally and feel so betrayed? It’s just a disagreement but some people here are taking it very personal.

    DRJ (15874d)

  172. By the way, we’re talking so I can understand your position. If I don’t understand something, please tell me but I’m not trying to misunderstand you. You don’t need to get angry at me for misunderstanding something.

    DRJ (15874d)

  173. Fine, Frederick. I realize you are speculating about others and you would never suggest that, but if they feel that way then they don’t know much about Patterico, do they?

    DRJ (15874d)

  174. His criticism of Trump is far more personal and vehemently full of hatred towards Trump than he ever did of Obama. And Obama has done far more damage to this nation than Trump could do short of nuking the world.

    NJRob (7f4bec) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:32 am

    NJRob, my guess is that Patterico might agree with this, so what is your point? Do we have to hate people reasonably and fairly, and according to our tribal affiliations? Isn’t hate by definition not reasonable or fair?

    DRJ (15874d)

  175. i think there’s a profoundly classist snobbery what’s inherent in the animus against President Trump. Obama was a wormy puke but he went to harvard, and that is so good – that is so good all up in it. If you’re a vicious nevertrump anyways.

    But President Trump’s a self-made man, a branding pioneer with extraordinary talent who’s earned the right to reject so so much of the conventional wisdom and banal politesse what has so longed help failmerica’s self-styled elite feather their nest.

    And oh how this galls them. They’d rather President Trump fail no matter who gets hurt, even though they know this is an unprecedented and wholly unexpected opportunity to salvage something good from this burgeoningly fascist, dirty decaying and disgusting slut-country we call America.

    I honestly don’t get it – it seems so shallow to me.

    My feeling is we either row together or we hit the cargo boat.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  176. @DRJ:Perhaps Patterico should do some polls, one that asks if it’s ok for him to criticize Trump — Yes or No — and another that asks how much criticism is allowed.

    I believe most of the commenters who argue with Patterico would reject that premise. The best way to find out would be to ask people directly.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  177. oopers

    banal politesse what has so *long* helped failmerica’s self-styled elite feather their nest

    touch of dyslexia there

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  178. @DRJ: they don’t know much about Patterico

    No one who has read him a long time would question his ability to get past the narrative, that’s one of the things this blog is known for. The people who are arguing with him about Trump, I feel, question his willingness to apply that capability when the topic is Trump.

    I would encourage you to put the question to people you’re engaging with, like NJ Rob, in a way that does not assume their motives, and see what kind of answer you get.

    The poll you suggested really assumes a motive: that it’s criticism itself that they object to. For a few people that may be the case but I see very little of that.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  179. If you’re gonna hate somebody, it should be for personal reasons. Hating someone because of differences of opinion is silly to say the very least.

    nk (dbc370)

  180. Then you can take that into account when you read his words, NJRob. The question isn’t why Patterico feels as he does, the question is why do his commenters take it so personally and feel so betrayed? It’s just a disagreement but some people here are taking it very personal.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:02 am

    By the way, we’re talking so I can understand your position. If I don’t understand something, please tell me but I’m not trying to misunderstand you. You don’t need to get angry at me for misunderstanding something.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:03 am

    Not angry. I rebutted your claim and clarified my own. I chose aggressive language in response to your off the cuff remark dismissing my claim. No big deal.

    I think it bothers us so much for several reasons. For me, it’s the following.

    1) I’ve been here for years and like and respect Patterico. I agree with him on most issues. So I’ve considered him someone that’s like a friend.

    2) Don’t understand why he has made it so personal with a guy he’s likely never even met who has many of the same smarmy characteristics that most politicians have, yet they just have the training to hide it better and deceive the public.

    3) Always gives the left the benefit of the doubt when they do something to harm Trump even though this is standard behavior for the left and he didn’t excuse it when they did it to Bush.

    4) Spends so much time going after Trump’s personal foibles that he is giving short thrift to scandals that are actually on the verge of destroying our nation (take your pick).

    5) Has blocked most nominal Trump supporters and claims it’s because they’ve changed and not he.

    6) Looks at every positive in the worst possible light and dismisses any claim that it’s better than the alternative.

    How’s that for a start?

    I prefer comity with my friends and to save the vehemence for my enemies. It’s clear that others have decided that people who aren’t anti-Trump are enemies. Makes it a frustrating time to try and thread the needle.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  181. Frederick,

    People can comment here without me asking questions.

    In addition, polls don’t work if they are open-ended. They need a focus to get results.

    DRJ (15874d)

  182. I think you should try to love President Trump though cause he’s so sweet (documentation)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  183. @DRJ: They need a focus to get results.

    If you choose a focus that assumes invidious motives, the results you get will not make things better, but make them worse. It would be very simple to asked focused questions that do not assume motives.

    People can comment here without me asking questions.

    Of course they can, but since you are “talking so I can understand your position. If I don’t understand something, please tell me but I’m not trying to misunderstand you”, then asking questions that don’t assume is an excellent way to avoid misunderstanding.

    Frederick (64d4e1)

  184. Then you have wannabe comedians like happyfeet that ruin a discussion with their clown nose on act.

    He actually had an intelligent remark a few days ago where he took the nose off and was coherent, then ruined it a few posts later by going back into his shtick. To be expected I guess.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  185. Thank you very much for your reply, NJRob. I will study it but I want you to know that asking if you think Patterico didn’t hate Obama enough was a sincere, albeit pointed, question based on what you wrote. I won’t belabor it further but I did not intend it as a dismissal.

    DRJ (15874d)

  186. I ask questions all the time, Frederick, but thank you for reminding me and for welcoming them.

    DRJ (15874d)

  187. Grade him on a curve, I think is what you’re saying — the curve being based on his normal behavior.

    No, I’m saying even nitwits have the right to be incensed when people lie about them.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  188. In addition, polls don’t work if they are open-ended.

    actually we do these all the time

    then we come of with a way to code the answers and put them into buckets so we have both qualitative and quantitative hooks on the data

    this can be an extremely useful exercise

    it can inform subsequent research efforts and help ensure that you’re asking the right people the right questions

    and it helps you interpret and analyze the quantitative data you collect

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  189. Addendum: Her evidence – that Trump kept saying “your guy” – led me more to think that Trump wasn’t sure if they were legally married.

    In some places it is rude to assume anything about a couple’s marital status, or even to mention it when sure. “Partner”, never “spouse.”

    Kevin M (752a26)

  190. oops then we come *up* with a way to code the answers i mean

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  191. Then you have wannabe comedians like happyfeet that ruin a discussion with their clown nose on act.

    if you talking about #179 i’m completely serious about that you should’ve seen my face when i was writing it

    i looked super thoughtful (led vanity mirror)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  192. DRJ – ” It is laughable to suggest that Patterico is easily fooled by media narratives.”

    And yet, here we are.

    SPQR (240837)

  193. That’s a great comment, NJRob 184. Thank you for going to the trouble of thinking about this, writing it, and for your candor.

    What you write makes sense to me and I identify with your feelings. I am not dismissing them but I view this from another perspective as a lawyer, like Patterico. Lawyers are trained to analyze all sides of an issue and sometimes it can seem like we are harder on “our own side.” We do this because we know challenging ideas makes us stronger, not weaker, because it reveals flaws when they can still be corrected.

    DRJ (15874d)

  194. Also, NJRob, I admit I don’t like the way Trump bullies people. It doesn’t appeal to me and it undercuts his message for me, but I know some people love it because they feel Republicans need to learn to fight back. Trump does that.

    I try to overcome my attitude when I evaluate what Trump does so I can separate my feelings from how I reason. I may not always be successful but I try, and I think Patterico does, too. One way he does that is by disclosing his feelings to his readers. He knows you will push back and hold him accountable. What I don’t think he expected was for his commenters to act like they hate him for hating Trump.

    DRJ (15874d)

  195. What media narrative did he fall for, SPQR?

    DRJ (15874d)

  196. Here, swc’s statement that he is “hearted” by my comments is intended to contrast the lowly nature of my job (in the eyes of swc) with the exalted nature of Gen. Kelly’s previous career.

    I did not read it that way, although I cannot know what swc meant. I read it as “someone whose job involves evaluating evidence and credibility on a daily basis thinks…”. Now it might be suggesting your BS detector has a slight tilt when evaluating the Trump administration, but I do NOT see it as a put-down of your job.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  197. I, personally, do think that in this instance Trump is more sinned against than sinning. The hug was clumsy, and the kiss was sloppy, and he stepped on a toe and messed up the lipstick, but he meant well. It is the Congresstermegant [Thanks again, Fred Z!] who is out of line by using the soldier’s death and his family’s grief as a political club.

    nk (dbc370)

  198. Also, NJRob, I admit I don’t like the way Trump bullies people. It doesn’t appeal to me and it undercuts his message for me, but I know some people love it because they feel Republicans need to learn to fight back. Trump does that.

    I try to overcome my attitude when I evaluate what Trump does so I can separate my feelings from how I reason. I may not always be successful but I try, and I think Patterico does, too. One way he does that is by disclosing his feelings to his readers. He knows you will push back and hold him accountable. What I don’t think he expected was for his commenters to act like they hate him for hating Trump.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:38 am

    I don’t like the way anyone bullies people. I didn’t like it when Obama did it by calling anyone a bitter clinger who disagreed with him. Told Republicans to get in the back of the bus. Told police they acted stupidly. Said Trayvon could’ve been his son and on and on.

    Didn’t see the hatred for those remarks that you see now.

    The left has been bullying people since they learned they could use it to win an argument. What do you suggest we do to get them to stop?

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  199. Question for our host:

    Do you feel it is important that Trump be primaried in 2020? If so, by whom? Should it be from the GOP establishment, or should it be another “outsider”, like Cruz. Will the threat of party ostracism prevent a challenge? Will it be more like 1980 or 1968?

    Love to see a post on your feelings here, as I am reasonably sure you do not want to have to choose between Trump and Kamala Harris.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  200. 111 — Patrick understood the point. But it wasn’t an AUSA v. DA showdown — I’d day the same thing about a line AUSA that showed the kind of disrespect that the OP shows to someone with the level of distinction and accomplishment that Kelly has achieved.

    I happen to have had a professional occasion to have quite bit of contact with one of Kelly’ equals — a former PACOM Commander (CINCPAC — Commander In Chief, Pacific). I had an open investigation of a bank for violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, and the alleged conduct reached into the Bank’s Exec. Suite, including the Bank President. The Bank was a wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly traded corporation, so when notified of the investigation the Board of the publicly traded corporation appointed a committee from among the Directors to do an internal investigation of the Bank officers’ actions. Heading up the Committee was the Retired Four Star Admiral who had been CINCPAC at Pacific Command.

    Myself, the US Attorney, and supervisory officials from the FBI had several meetings with that committee, which included four other very distinguished and accomplished individuals from their own fields — but none close to being as impressive in their manner and conduct as the former CINCPAC. He knew the people, he studied the facts, he made it a point to understand the laws involved, and he knew the investigators and what was important for us to learn from the committee. Largely as a result of his work along with their outside counsel, we exonerated the bank as an entity, and one bank official pled guilty.

    Those 9 combatant commands are the pinnacle of leadership in the armed forces. The people that rise to those positions had hundreds of opportunities along their career path to do something stupid or make a career ending mistake in judgment – that’s the way the armed services work. But they rose to their positions of supreme authority in their branches because they never made such a mistake, AND they demonstrated leadership and intelligence all along the way that put them ahead of their peers who were also on the same career arc.

    Maybe Patrick just doesn’t understand the way promotions work about O3. At each rank above where you are at, there are fewer positions than there were at the rank level you are leaving. So not every Captain makes Major, and not every Major makes Lt. Colonel. Above Lt. Colonel — or Commander in the Navy — the opportunities to promote dramatically narrow.

    If you don’t make the next rank, you are pretty much forced into separation from the service, because there is a lower ranking officer seeking to move up into your slot. It is in almost all respects an “up or out” promotion process. Sometimes you can go sideways by taking different positions at the same rank, but that generally happens only if there are open slots for you to move into, and it doesn’t necessarily last for very long.

    Kelly made it to O10.

    There are only TWO Four Star Marine Corps Generals in the Marine Corps at any one time. Kelly was one of those 2 at the end of his career.

    Yep — he’s a “fella who is mostly smart and capable.”

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  201. so he was really good at one narrow little military job

    that doesn’t mean he’s cut out for the real whirl

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  202. Addendum: Her evidence – that Trump kept saying “your guy” – led me more to think that Trump wasn’t sure if they were legally married.

    In some places it is rude to assume anything about a couple’s marital status, or even to mention it when sure. “Partner”, never “spouse.”

    Luckily, there’s no need to make assumptions, because Sgt. Johnson’s marital status would have been known by the Army.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  203. Specifically, NJRob, I have concerns about these statements regarding Patterico:

    4) Spends so much time going after Trump’s personal foibles that he is giving short thrift to scandals that are actually on the verge of destroying our nation (take your pick).

    Patterico blogs about many things, but blogs by definition are personal choices. He provides a wide range of content and topics but I don’t think this is fair. His blog, his choice.

    5) Has blocked most nominal Trump supporters and claims it’s because they’ve changed and not he.

    Patterico bans people for specific reasons. He tells them why and gives them a way to fix the problem. It’s not his fault that they choose to leave.

    6) Looks at every positive in the worst possible light and dismisses any claim that it’s better than the alternative.

    Really?

    DRJ (15874d)

  204. I understand you feel Patterico wasn’t sufficiently respectful, swc, but even someone with Kelly’s impressive background, experience and integrity can be wrong. He seems to have been wrong here and your answer seems to be to criticize Patterico for noticing it.

    DRJ (15874d)

  205. i’m glad he didn’t ban Mr. Shipwreck even though certain people tried to cajole him into doing so

    Mr. Shipwreck makes super-informative comments and he’s a very positive, up person what focuses on all the good what’s been done in this post-obama whirl and on all the good what remains to be done

    i love that

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  206. NJRob,

    Patterico has been critical of most of what Obama and the Clinton have done. Is it possible you read those posts and enjoyed them, so you almost didn’t see them as biting? Because I think Obama and Clinton supporters felt they stung.

    DRJ (15874d)

  207. I don’t like to see people banned, either, but I think moderation is appropriate when the lines between online/real life are blurred.

    DRJ (15874d)

  208. i see your point for sure but i think Mr. Shipwreck knows how to color within the lines

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  209. Frederick,

    How would you write a fair poll?

    DRJ (15874d)

  210. Specifically, NJRob, I have concerns about these statements regarding Patterico:
    4) Spends so much time going after Trump’s personal foibles that he is giving short thrift to scandals that are actually on the verge of destroying our nation (take your pick).
    Patterico blogs about many things, but blogs by definition are personal choices. He provides a wide range of content and topics but I don’t think this is fair. His blog, his choice.
    5) Has blocked most nominal Trump supporters and claims it’s because they’ve changed and not he.
    Patterico bans people for specific reasons. He tells them why and gives them a way to fix the problem. It’s not his fault that they choose to leave.
    6) Looks at every positive in the worst possible light and dismisses any claim that it’s better than the alternative.
    Really?
    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:55 am

    I didn’t say banned. I said blocked. He doesn’t want to read them anymore. Which is his choice. But it is interesting that people who he’s had discussions with for years are now no longer even worthy of being read, much less conversation.

    6) Looks at every positive in the worst possible light and dismisses any claim that it’s better than the alternative.
    Really?
    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:55 am

    I posted 6 times in that post. The end conclusion was that Trump wasn’t worthy of a vote, but others were allowed to do so. McLaughlin ended his post this way:

    Trump himself and his true deplorables deserve no mercy from anyone, and there are many recriminations still due over how he got nominated. But many millions of Trump’s general-election voters don’t deserve to be lumped in that same basket. In general, the American family could use a lot less malice and a little more charity toward our fellow voters all around.

    So Trump deserves no mercy, but voters don’t deserve the same malice.

    Gee, thanks.

    NJRob,

    Patterico has been critical of most of what Obama and the Clinton have done. Is it possible you read those posts and enjoyed them, so you almost didn’t see them as biting? Because I think Obama and Clinton supporters felt they stung.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 11:04 am

    Critical? Yes. Vicious? Personal? Insulting? Derogatory? Vindictive? Nah.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  211. shipwreckedcrew,

    I don’t want to leave the wrong impression. General Kelly made a heartfelt, patriotic and wonderful speech about our military and its fallen heroes. He conveyed the perfect message regarding what it means to serve and to risk all for our country. I applaud him for that and thank him for his honorable service.

    I also think Trump was trying to say what Kelly said. Maybe he said it all in just that way. Maybe everyone but Trump is lying. But it doesn’t look that way.

    However, some of the things Kelly said about Wilson in defense of Trump were apparently wrong. I trust it was a mistake due to confusion, memory or haste. It happens and I don’t think less of him for it. But if he persists in claiming Wilson is a greedy empty barrel given the video released today, without more proof, then I don’t think that would be a good decision.

    DRJ (15874d)

  212. what we learned is nevertrump will make common cause with a skank like frederica and exploit the holy hell out of a grieving military widow if they can use it to smear trump

    it’s sad and very classless

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  213. and we learned General Kelly’s a pompous weirdo

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  214. NJRob:

    I didn’t say banned. I said blocked. He doesn’t want to read them anymore. Which is his choice. But it is interesting that people who he’s had discussions with for years are now no longer even worthy of being read, much less conversation.

    I’m sorry I mistook blocked for banned. Thank you for clarifying that for me, and it is interesting.

    So Trump deserves no mercy, but voters don’t deserve the same malice.

    That seems to be Patterico’s position. Why is that unreasonable?

    Critical? Yes. Vicious? Personal? Insulting? Derogatory? Vindictive? Nah.

    Once again I ask: So Patterico didn’t hate Obama enough?

    DRJ (15874d)

  215. Or are you saying Patterico isn’t allowed to feel anger and hate for Trump if he doesn’t feel it for Obama?

    DRJ (15874d)

  216. @216/217 Mr. Feet, Ms. Wilson is a family friend of the fallen and Mr. Kelly is no longer a general.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  217. there’s no proof that she was a family friend what we know is that skankatha found out the dead guy was enrolled in some at-risk youth program of hers for some period of time

    there’s no proof we’ve seen yet that she knew La or La’s wife in any meaningful way

    and i bet you anything when General Kelly prances around the white house everyone calls him General Kelly

    am i wrong about that? I would like to know

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  218. . How many people here have been as forthcoming about their biases?
    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 8:47 am

    I would say, very few – myself included. But I wonder what, exactly, “being forthcoming” about our biases really means. Certainly, an honest identification of a personal bias, counts, insofar as you use the admission to place your thoughts in context for the benefit of all.

    I am sure that I am not alone in practicing self moderation (“self-censorship” to the jaded and the libertine) when commenting as a natural consequence of our upbringing. When emotions run high, our sensibilities can be offended, causing a cascade that sometimes draws upon an, otherwise, subdued bias against our better judgement, and not the preferred method of debate.

    While I, generally, find such admissions of bias to be a sign of healthy introspection, there is a risk of becoming inured to our flaws, entreching our selves in a “yeah, but whatamigonnado?” attitude.

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  219. meanwhile today we also learned that when President Trump calls bereaved families the call goes something like this

    these calls could not be more warm more sweet or more loving

    and it’s sick to have made such a tawdry spectacle of a family the way skankatha, nevertrump, and the media have done

    and sadly it’s not to anyone in that family’s credit that they’ve gone along with this exploitation of their loved one – if this were my family i would be MORTIFIED

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  220. I was STUNNED to see the video of the nice speech Rep. Wilson gave at the dedication of the building. She did a bit of boasting about getting the dedication legislation passed, sure, but it was otherwise a very nice speech and totally misrepresented by our storied retired general. His big thing was how she ignored the importance of the slain FBI agents and that was totally false.

    I’d say that Rep. Wilson has the credibility edge over Gen. Kelly at this point. Funny hats notwithstanding.

    Patterico (e76608)

  221. DRJ, Thanks to Dana’s legwork in locating the Miami video we can see the entirety of her remarks which do not support the harshness of Kelly’s criticism. I think you’re right that there’s probably more history between them. He appears to object to the 2 or 3 min segment starting about 1:30 where she tells the tale of how she pushed the authorization to name the building through the system in record time. As the CINC at SOUTHCOM he would have been well acquainted the local pols and would have played host to them and fielded their questions/complaints frequently so who knows if that had something to do with it and/or if he reacted because of a personal relationship with the senior agent killed in the firefight. Regardless, the entire episode demonstrates what Kelly was right about – nothing good comes of bringing politics into the military’s Mortuary Affairs process.

    crazy (d99a88)

  222. Looks like I inadvertently stepped on our host’s post. Sorry.

    crazy (d99a88)

  223. 159. Dana (023079) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:13 am

    Full video of Frederica Wilson’s speech in 2015 at the new FBI building here.

    Did she say anything about President Obama in that speech?

    Because that’s what Kelly was talking about.

    He said, if you get past his first mention of how she “was instrumental in getting the funding for that building,” and that she “got the money”, what she said, according to retired General John Kelly, was that she called President Obama and

    on that phone call he gave the money — the $20 million — to build the building.

    It could be.

    It could be it was being held up. Or at least she claimed that. Sometimes projects get stalled for one reason or another.

    Kelly doesn’t say she got the appropriations through Congress (which actually, as a freshman, she couldn’t do anyway, although maybe they did get earmarks.

    Kelly might just not have been very familiar with the way approvals work. It’s not maybe like one big pot of money is appropriated. The military budget works that way a lot though, I think.

    Or it could be that he got details wrong. And all President Obama needed to do was release a little money from some account for the new signs.

    Could you get a transcript or maybe find the mention of Obama doing something about the building because of her phone call, if there was one, and what precisely she said?

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  224. The details of the remarkable standards and qualifications to be considered for the rank that Kelly achieved speaks volumes about the man. Obviously, Kelly is a significant figure who has accomplished the extraordinary. I don’t think any reasonable person would deny that. But even with all of that, Kelly is still a mere mortal, and one who may have misremembered an event, didn’t do his homework, or simply defended the President because he was tasked to do so. As a man who has spent most of his life in the military, he has certainly followed orders before, whether he agreed or disagreed with them. Perhaps this was an extension of that training, and he *chose* to do what his boss told him to do in whatever way he could do it.

    Dana (023079)

  225. 167. DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:46 am

    I don’t know what Kelly heard that day but the video doesn’t show anything like what he said.

    There is aquestion. Did she saying anything about making a phone call to President Obama?

    It makes me wonder if he is confusing it with another event.

    Kelly didn’t remember it so well, and what i wonder is if somebody else (who researched things and found out that he was there) asked him to talk about it. But unless he was present at two speeches about two different buildings, I don’t know.

    Kelly was a little bit shaky even about when it happened. That happens, people aren’t so sure just when something that they remember happened. He started to say October (meaning one year ago) and then corrected it to April.

    Then, he got the name of one of the FBI agents wrong – and he repeated it. And he must have just looked it p, too, I would think. He said “Duke,” rather than “Dove” Pfor one of the FBI agents’ names.robably Duke sounds more like a real name. he got the fact that the name began with a D, had four letters, and ended with an “e” right, but it wasn’t Duke, and he got the name Grogan right.

    We don’t know from:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

    …whether he got the other facts about Grogan right – that he was 53 years old, and close to retirement (eligibility at least). It’s probably true or close to the truth.

    The other one he said he thought had less than a year on the job. That sounds like a remark somebody might have made. Kelly remembered that they got into a gunfight and were killed.

    Third, Kelly said:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/statement-kelly-gold-star.html

    And a congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise,

    That sounds like he didn’t pay too careful attention to her speech.

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  226. Then you can take that into account when you read his words, NJRob. The question isn’t why Patterico feels as he does, the question is why do his commenters take it so personally and feel so betrayed? It’s just a disagreement but some people here are taking it very personal.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:02 am

    By the way, we’re talking so I can understand your position. If I don’t understand something, please tell me but I’m not trying to misunderstand you. You don’t need to get angry at me for misunderstanding something.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 10:03 am

    Not angry. I rebutted your claim and clarified my own. I chose aggressive language in response to your off the cuff remark dismissing my claim. No big deal.

    I think it bothers us so much for several reasons. For me, it’s the following.

    1) I’ve been here for years and like and respect Patterico. I agree with him on most issues. So I’ve considered him someone that’s like a friend.

    2) Don’t understand why he has made it so personal with a guy he’s likely never even met who has many of the same smarmy characteristics that most politicians have, yet they just have the training to hide it better and deceive the public.

    3) Always gives the left the benefit of the doubt when they do something to harm Trump even though this is standard behavior for the left and he didn’t excuse it when they did it to Bush.

    4) Spends so much time going after Trump’s personal foibles that he is giving short thrift to scandals that are actually on the verge of destroying our nation (take your pick).

    5) Has blocked most nominal Trump supporters and claims it’s because they’ve changed and not he.

    6) Looks at every positive in the worst possible light and dismisses any claim that it’s better than the alternative.

    How’s that for a start?

    I prefer comity with my friends and to save the vehemence for my enemies. It’s clear that others have decided that people who aren’t anti-Trump are enemies. Makes it a frustrating time to try and thread the needle.

    I have been frustrated by your comments at times, NJRob, but ultimately I sense the respect you so kindly say you have for me, and I do read your comments even though I often disagree with them because you don’t take the whole “I am fed up with this guy and this blog” attitude that I get so very tired of seein

    Let me address your points and ask some questions.

    I think it bothers us so much for several reasons. For me, it’s the following.

    1) I’ve been here for years and like and respect Patterico. I agree with him on most issues. So I’ve considered him someone that’s like a friend.

    This is the most important thing to me, and I return the compliment. I can take any criticism, even (as we shall soon see) criticism with which I disagree strongly, if it is offered in this respectful and charitable spirit.

    2) Don’t understand why he has made it so personal with a guy he’s likely never even met who has many of the same smarmy characteristics that most politicians have, yet they just have the training to hide it better and deceive the public.

    Hoagie recently said something similar. This really is just an “agree to disagree” situation. Either you see Trump as markedly different from most other politicians in terms of integrity and other personal characteristics, or you don’t. If you don’t by now, nothing I say will change that.

    3) Always gives the left the benefit of the doubt when they do something to harm Trump even though this is standard behavior for the left and he didn’t excuse it when they did it to Bush.

    I think such categorical proclamations overstate things. But I know from previous discussions that we have different views about the left and how to treat them. It is what it is.

    4) Spends so much time going after Trump’s personal foibles that he is giving short thrift to scandals that are actually on the verge of destroying our nation (take your pick).

    OK. Take you pick. Which ones? One frustration I feel here is that people sometimes act like I have ignored things I most certainly have not ignored. Kevin M did that with the Clinton uranium story, which I have written two posts about in recent days. From many, I get zero credit for that and zero credit for posts that credit Trump with the successes he has had.

    5) Has blocked most nominal Trump supporters and claims it’s because they’ve changed and not he.

    I have not blocked you, Hoagie, or ropelight, to take three examples off the top of my head. It goes back to point #1. Even if you guys all drive me crazy at times, I still sense a basic friendliness that, while I have never met any of you, makes me like you all a lot and desire to meet you if I could. I do think Trump has changed people though. Look at the ugly way Ace turned on Allahpundit. He is nasty and ugly and I find it tremendously disappointing coming from a guy I have hung out with and liked.

    6) Looks at every positive in the worst possible light and dismisses any claim that it’s better than the alternative.

    Again, I don’t think that’s fair. If you look at posts I have written about Gorsuch, the Iran deal, the repeal of ObamaCare subsidies, slashing of regulations, and so forth, I give credit to Trump every time I see something that merits it. If he spends most of his time and energy acting like a jackass rather than focusing on stuff like I just listed, that is his fault, not mine.

    Patterico (e76608)

  227. 228. Dana (023079) — 10/20/2017 @ 12:39 pm

    The details of the remarkable standards and qualifications to be considered for the rank that Kelly achieved speaks volumes about the man. Obviously, Kelly is a significant figure who has accomplished the extraordinary.

    We can’t say that just because of the jobs he’s held, he’s good. So Patterico is right to praise him, and swc wrong to argue that that was obvious just from his work history.

    After all, Mike Flynn also had high military rank. (and he also had what a person might consider the demerit of being appointed by Donald Trump.)

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  228. Did she say anything about President Obama in that speech?

    Yes she did. The link is there. Watch it. Just not what Kelly claimed. Nothing about $20 million or money at all. This is the dedication where Comey spoke (and thanked her btw).

    I guess the militant Trumpers will ignore this and/or spin like a top.

    Meanwhile the left will call Kelly a racist for growing up in Boston. Sheesh.

    Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

    Patterico (e76608)

  229. this is terrifying you will scream

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  230. Once again I ask: So Patterico didn’t hate Obama enough?

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 11:30 am

    Once again I reiterate you are interpreting my remarks incorrectly.

    It was good of Patterico to oppose Obama l, but not hate him. I wish he would do the same for Trump when it is needed.

    NJRob (336bc4)

  231. The details of the remarkable standards and qualifications to be considered for the rank that Kelly achieved speaks volumes about the man. Obviously, Kelly is a significant figure who has accomplished the extraordinary.

    I’m with Sammy to the extent that rank and promotions do not impress me. People are often promoted in the military and elsewhere for reasons other than merit. But Kelly the man is pretty impressive.

    Patterico (e76608)

  232. Sammy Finkleman,

    You need to define ” good,” in this context because the rest of my comment makes clear that, in spite of his stature, Kelly still has feet of clay.

    Dana (023079)

  233. So Trump deserves no mercy, but voters don’t deserve the same malice.
    That seems to be Patterico’s position. Why is that unreasonable?

    It is unreasonable because it’s a standard that is being held only to Trump and no one else.

    Blind hate makes us unreasonable and irrational. Makes us go on hateful screeds.

    Do you think hate is healthy?

    NJRob (336bc4)

  234. It was good of Patterico to oppose Obama l, but not hate him. I wish he would do the same for Trump when it is needed.

    I will never understand why it was so all-fire important to people on the right that I personally hate Obama (or at least not think him good) and not hate Trump. As people! Who cares? All that matters is whether the criticism is valid.

    Patterico (e76608)

  235. My position is that I try to reject hatred for anyone. It is a negative emotion and I am not proud of it.

    Patterico (e76608)

  236. there’s nothing wrong with hating people what do tremendous damage on America like obama and john mccain and george bush and terrorists and such

    they have no claim on our affections, for they are evil and their victims legion

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  237. The only problem I find with Patterico over Trump – and it’s minor one – is that he sometimes doesn’t carefully examine Democratic or leftist attacks on Trump. As for me, I never bought into many of the common attacks against Bill Clinton.

    I think Clinton was guilty of everything he was accused of or the moral equivalent but too many attacks had things wrong. I think actually many of them were started by Bill Clinton himself. He knew people wanted to think they knew the truth, so if fed them something, their skepticism would be satiated, and it was better to feed them something (without leaving too many traces of the origin) that never could lead anywhere because it wasn’t true than it was to only deny. We get books like that even till today with the inside story about this or that regarding the Clintons. Bill and Hillary are not speaking to each other and so on like that.

    I think Bill Clinton invented the missile theory for TWA Flight 800, and spurred it along. To hide what really happened.

    Anyway, Trump may be a bigger liar than many other politicians, but he’s an incompetent one. Today he was back at that. He said the “wacky Congresswoman” gave a “total lie on content.”

    It’s not a total lie. Maybe THE CONCLUSION SHE DRAWS – or THE PICTURE SHE PAINTS is. But there doesn’t seem to be much disagreement between her and the White House on the facts of the conversation.

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  238. NJRob,

    Patterico has been critical of most of what Obama and the Clinton have done. Is it possible you read those posts and enjoyed them, so you almost didn’t see them as biting? Because I think Obama and Clinton supporters felt they stung.

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/20/2017 @ 11:04 am

    Critical? Yes. Vicious? Personal? Insulting? Derogatory? Vindictive? Nah.

    I think I felt hate for Obama when I wrote this post:

    https://patterico.com/2013/01/21/congratulations-to-barack-obama-on-another-four-years-to-cement-the-utter-destruction-of-my-childrens-future/

    I would like everyone who thinks I was kissy-kissy with Obama to please read the post I just linked. Ask yourself if your memory is maybe just a little off.

    Patterico (e76608)

  239. I think I am destined to hate all future Presidents until I die. Partisan supporters of those presidents will tear their hair out while partisan criticism will love it.

    Patterico (e76608)

  240. Btw Trump ain’t doing anything about my primary concerns about my children’s future as expressed in that rant against Obama. But who cares, right, because it’s Trump. Fiscal responsibility be damned and let’s all laugh at Rand Paul hahahahaha. That’s the bullshit partisan attitude that sets me off. Right there.

    Patterico (e76608)

  241. 236. Dana (023079) — 10/20/2017 @ 1:06 pm

    Sammy Finkleman,

    You need to define ” good,” in this context because the rest of my comment makes clear that, in spite of his stature, Kelly still has feet of clay.

    In this context it’s just what I quoted: “speaks volumes about the man.” “has accomplished the extraordinary.”

    It was actually Patterico who praised himin the post before the update:

    Kelly showed a seriousness and gravity of which Trump is incapable. It’s nice to know that Trump has surrounded himself with a fella who seems mostly smart and capable and who demonstrates real leadership. That was the first time I have seen Kelly speak, and I was mostly impressed.

    I see now you actually weren’t quite agreeing with that any more.

    What I think, though, is it isn’t settled that Kelly got things wrong about Congresswoman Wilson taking credit for the building. It depends on what exactly she said about her telephone call with Obama. Is that in the video? Kelly could have misremembered – he basically did not believe what she was saying and didn’t pay that much attention.

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  242. i love that thread elissa made soup and Mr. JD and Mr. daley were there

    and Mr. buttons too!!!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  243. Patterico (e76608) — 10/20/2017 @ 12:45 pm

    Thank you for taking the time to respond to my remarks.

    NJRob (336bc4)

  244. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a reporter Friday that it would be “highly inappropriate” to get into a debate with “a four-star Marine general” over whether he misstated facts.

    Well, it’s nice to know what the rules of the game are. And heck, if that‘d be inappropriate, how much more inappropriate would it be it to get into a similar debate with anyone higher up the food chain? How convenient. Nice to know how this democracy (cum free press) thing is supposed to work. Nowadays.

    Q! (86710c)

  245. I think I am destined to hate all future Presidents until I die.

    I thought that once, comparing everyone to Reagan. Both party’s candidates paled.

    Bush Sr vs Dukakis. Yeck.

    Bus Sr vs Clonton. I supported Perot (gathered petitons for him) not because I was enamored of Perot, but because even then I was tired of the Culture War, which may actually be America’s Longest War™.

    And when it came to Clinton vs Dole, it was beyond terrible. I voted LP. Ran as an LP candidate for state assembly (spoiler: lost).

    Perhaps presciently, I favored Powell in 2000 until he chickened out, then Bush Jr bought everyone out and it was him of Gore. Terrible, but a clear choice. I was starting to accept I had to make one. Powell would have made a great wartime President.

    When the Dems nominated Kerry, a mach who could not organize lunch, the choice was again clear. Although the choices were poor.

    Since Reagan, there have only been 2 people of character to be nominated for President. By far and away, Romney stands out. After that, it would be Bush Sr, as much as I disliked him at the time.

    I see no future in a GOP cast in a Trump mold, so I will do all I can to find someone else in 2020.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  246. I see no future in a GOP cast in a Trump mold, so I will do all I can to find someone else in 2020.

    I love him and i’ll oppose all of your dark treacherous machinations with every breath i can muster

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  247. omfg

    this is the best thing ever

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  248. You forgot to book this band for that slap fight:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmcncGirAU4

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  249. hah love gap band

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  250. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-reg-wilson-kelly-tape-of-speech-20171020-story.html is not vdeo of the speech but a news report, (in which the narrator says Marine Corpse by the way)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  251. @248 “highly inappropriate” to get into a debate with “a four-star Marine general”

    Remember that there’s a Trump tweet for every occasion:
    https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/759024055123009536

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  252. This is the video of the speech:

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/94925992-132.html

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  253. whaaa?

    why tf are filthy corrupt fbi slutmonkeys getting involved in this

    The FBI has joined the investigation into how four American soldiers were killed by Islamic militants in Niger two weeks ago, as the Pentagon and White House face growing questions about the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  254. sounds like some balls-out KGB sh!t to me

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  255. 256. It is indoors. Someone gets in front taking pictures. U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson is in frnt speaking. She starts off by introducing other members of Congress “ladies first” startying with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who gets up and takes a bow.

    She starts telling the story. Without giving any further background, she says the FBI came to her four weeks before the dedication, and asked to change the name of the facility. (why did they go to her? She doesn’t say) They wanted to do it at the same time as the dedication or something.

    Now normally, she says, renaming something takes about eight to nine months. But not for her. She used to be a high school principal. She went into “attack mode.” And she went to Speaker Boehner and he also went into “attack mode” and he got that bill out of committee very fast.

    I don’t know why Obama would need to be involved with this. Unlike many Governors, he has on;y 10 days (not counting Sundays) to sign or veto a bill.

    Does she mention President Obama later on? If not, this is not the same speech Kelly was talking about or it is a “total fabrication.”

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  256. 257. Well, the FBI does investigate terrorist attacks.

    Sammy Finkelman (3915d0)

  257. yeah i’m sure that’s all it is

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  258. …Gen. Kelly has moral authority regarding his own son’s death, but he has no real moral authority to dictate whom the family happens to have present when a call like that is made. That’s their choice, not his — and anyway, there is zero indication that they knew the call was coming and arranged for the Congresswoman to be there for that purpose…

    Actually there’s tons of indication they knew the call was coming. The President or other senior officials never call a servicemember’s family out of the blue to make condolence calls. GEN Kelly mentioned in his presser that they always have someone make a pre-call to see if the next of kin wants to take the call. If they do, then senior officials will call later.

    And when the senior official calls they have somebody else set up the call before telling the individual to stand by for the President (or whatever the senior official’s job title happens to be).

    …The Congresswoman’s claim was that Trump said “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” The controversial part of that was “he knew what he signed up for.”…

    What in the h3ll is controversial about this, Pat? Since I was a Coast Guard brat, when I was growing up I got medical care at the local Regional Naval Medical Center. At the tail end of the Vietnam war when I was old enough to know what I was looking at I remember the passageways were lined with men in wheelchairs. Some had been horribly burned, others with missing limbs. Both Sailors and Marines. Sailors tend not to lose limbs by getting blown up. Most of them lose limbs when the arresting cables on their aircraft carriers snapped and went whipping across the flight deck. Or it could be a hangar deck accident; something as simple as a forklift chopping your feet off at the ankles. Aircraft carriers seem big, but they conduct the kind of operations that would be spread out over hundreds if not thousands of acres if it were an Air Force base. You can also lose a limb just during line handling evolutions, such as mooring. I’ve seen it happen.

    I don’t think I need to go into how you can get horribly burned. Even nuclear carriers have to carry millions of gallons of jet fuel. Combined with tons of ordnance and it’s one big industrial accident just waiting to happen. Not that the surface ships are much safer.

    https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/bt1-andrew-gallagher-risked-his-life-to-save-others-aboard-uss-belknap/

    Just take a look at the mess the fire that resulted from a collision made out of that ship. I have no doubt BT1 Gallagher knew exactly what he was getting into when he rejoined the Navy a few months after he got out in 1974. And thank God he did because he saved a lot of lives because he knew what he was doing.

    I signed the contract to join the Navy just a few months after an Iraqi jet put two Exocet missiles in the USS Stark, incinerating 37 men to death and wounding 21 others. Most of the wounded, yes, very badly burned.

    I knew exactly what I had signed up for. I had seen the human cost of just operating a ship considering all the things that can go wrong even when not conducting combat operations. Let alone when operating in a combat zone.

    Frankly after growing up and for decades witnessing all the ways you can get badly injured or killed (not that I saw much of that as they don’t put corpses out in the passageways in naval hospitals) I would be more insulted if the President called my next of kin and didn’t say I knew what I had signed up for. I’m not that stupid. I’d be insulted if people said or implied that after all those decades I still didn’t have a clue about the hazards I’d have to train to deal with.

    …She did a bit of boasting about getting the dedication legislation passed, sure, but it was otherwise a very nice speech and totally misrepresented by our storied retired general…

    Otherwise a very nice speech? Well, I’m sure otherwise Mrs. Lincoln thought it was a very nice play.

    Hey, here’s a thought; why don’t politicians try no boasting at all when dedicating a memorial to anyone who was killed in the line of duty. Because it’s not about you at all. Any amount of boasting would have caused me to tune this Congresswoman or any politician out and force me to wonder, “Who the h3ll does she think she is?” After tuning her out I’m sure I wouldn’t have heard the rest of it, either.

    But then I don’t willingly go and listen to any politician’s speeches. When I was stationed at Fleet Activities Yokosuka, home of 7th Fleet, I twice traded duty so I could be on watch when Bill Clinton and George Bush visited. Both times every admiral ashore and afloat had put out the word; unless you were performing some vital duty such as standing a watch you would attend. PO’d my Captain when I traded duty so I didn’t have to go listen to Billy Jeff but I just told him the guy on watch really wanted to go and as for me, my dad the sainted Senior Chief taught me early on that it doesn’t matter what office they hold they’re all still just politicians. My Captain was a flaming liberal who loved Billy Jeff but there was nothing he could do as I was legitimately on watch.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  259. Not sure of the provenance of this screen cap
    https://mobile.twitter.com/ThomasWictor/status/921456482310377472/photo/1

    SPQR (804035)

  260. and watchful you remain

    good comment Mr. 57

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  261. Steve57,

    I agree this call was probably prearranged so they knew it was coming. Maybe they asked the Congresswoman to be with them. Maybe they wanted to make Trump look bad. Or maybe they were anticipating the call and wanted other people to listen on the speakerphone. I think it was the widow’s choice and, if she wanted them, her family’s choice how they handled the call.

    I also agree there is nothing wrong with saying military service involves the possibility of facing death. To me, the problem is Trump denied saying what Rep Wilson said he said. Some think that is a fair description because Trump’s message was positive and Rep Wilson and the family view it as a negative. But all the facts suggest Trump did say what Wilson said. The issue is factual: What did Trump say, not what did Trump intend.

    My feeling, and I could be wrong, is that Trump meant well and he meant to say what Kelly explained. Maybe the family was not receptive and cut him off before he could finish. Or maybe, in the sadness of the call, Trump failed to say exactly what he meant. It doesn’t matter to me because my concern is that when Trump was faced with the aftermath, he said it didn’t happen instead of clarifying what he intended. To me, he lied.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  262. If Trump was going to respond, he should have tweeted something like what SPQR linked and not a denial. Even his staff acknowledges he said some of those words.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  263. if these sad shriveled people get all disrespected by a sweet warm and sincerely respectful call from the president of the united states

    they can raise all the sweet gofundme loot they want

    they’re in for a hard life

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  264. Some of them may have welcomed the call, hf, but their loved one died. They are grieving. Handling this on top of everything else must be a nightmare. Kelly and Patterico agree about that.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  265. The issue is factual: What did Trump say, not what did Trump intend.

    nonsense

    everybody what’s lost someone knows gosh-darn well how exhausting it is

    the well-wishers and the visitors and those what are there by dint of wife or boyfriend or what have you and they don’t know anything about anything but they dress respectful and they put on their game face and they do it

    but you still have to help them

    some of them are clumsy

    some of them are new at this

    some of them just say the wrong thing

    you’re grieving yes yes, but you help them through it

    you smooth over the rough spots

    you smile for them and reach out and say that’s ok I understand

    this is basic human graciousness

    it’s instinctive for most of us

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  266. seems like nothin ever comes to no good up on choctaw ridge

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  267. I think I felt hate for Obama when I wrote this post:

    https://patterico.com/2013/01/21/congratulations-to-barack-obama-on-another-four-years-to-cement-the-utter-destruction-of-my-childrens-future/

    I would like everyone who thinks I was kissy-kissy with Obama to please read the post I just linked. Ask yourself if your memory is maybe just a little off.

    Patterico (e76608) — 10/20/2017 @ 1:17 pm

    I reread it.

    You certainly did express your anger at Obama in that piece. It was personal. But then you adjusted again and went want to critiquing his policies and not just him. That’s what I’m saying.

    As for the idiots in government, none of them give a damn about the future or our kids. They are just passing the buck while they get rich to inoculate themselves from the consequences of their profligate spending. And the consequences to the average American will be severe.

    NJRob (336bc4)

  268. The President of the United States made a condolence call to the widow of Sgt. Johnson. This kindly-meant and difficult phone call was used by a democrat to criticize the President. I assume she blabbed to the media and the media ran with it instead of backing off like it was the third rail. What a shocker. So good to have Patterico et al to jump on the bandwagon which is exactly what they want. 266 comments about he said ‘your guy’ and General Kelly remembered wrong and blah blah blah.

    peggy (b0a672)

  269. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/20/trump-block-release-jfk-kennedy-assassination-files-documents-215732

    Administration officials would not identify what specific information related to Kennedy’s murder might be kept secret on Trump’s orders, though they acknowledged concern over classified documents held at the Archives that were created decades after the assassination—specifically, in the 1990s

    He’s useless.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  270. you have to wonder what he got in exchange

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  271. Must be a bombshell cuz Obomber killed it too.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  272. This fire should have been put out Thursday. Too much Marine, not enough manager: history will show Kelly’s at best a mediocre WH Chief of Staff.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  273. I respect Kelly even now, DC. He’s in a tough spot and his son must be a daily pain exacerbated by these events.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  274. @273. It’s not about him.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  275. Kelly’s a pompous wad of dork like Colin Powell and Wesley Clark and Mike Flynn and David Petraeus and James Mattis and literally dozens of others i could name, and I don’t even follow this that closely.

    At the top brass levels the US Military’s the most efficient and effective douchebag factory on the planet.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  276. But you’d think he sees this as a tremendous ME moment for him.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  277. brb

    i needs must walk amongst the stones

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  278. @277. No. This should have been put to bed Thursday and a strong manager; a James Baker type, would have put a lid on it. Kelly’s not comfortable out of uniform. It’s glaringly obvious. Yesterday devolved as he fell back on being a four star general and ended up acting like a five star brass juggling facts and bantering w/a free press. He didn’t want the CoS gig to begin with. And it shows.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  279. @280. Not if it clears Pappy Cruz.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  280. Context people,
    https://mobile.twitter.com/texasinafrica/status/921479938531889154?p=v

    Now if you want to furn this into a propaganda triumph for Al queda go right ahead.

    narciso (d1f714)

  281. http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/niger-muslim-ban/5603/

    Donald Trump insisted that his overtly racist Muslim Ban would somehow make the United States safer. Anyone with even a basic grasp of reality understood that it served no purpose whatsoever. Now it turns out the Muslim Ban has left the U.S. less safe, as it led to a diplomatic crisis that ended up putting U.S soldiers in danger in Niger – including the four who were killed this month.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  282. Kelly couldn’t do a coup at Dairy Queen if he was the assistant manager and the manager trusted him with the keys

    he’s a top brass man through and through

    the private sector’s complicated and scary for him

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  283. I agree this call was probably prearranged so they knew it was coming. Maybe they asked the Congresswoman to be with them. Maybe they wanted to make Trump look bad. Or maybe they were anticipating the call and wanted other people to listen on the speakerphone. I think it was the widow’s choice and, if she wanted them, her family’s choice how they handled the call…

    …Even his staff acknowledges he said some of those words.

    DRJ (0280d9) — 10/20/2017 @ 3:25 pm

    First of all it was definitely prearranged, not probably. Second, it isn’t entirely the widow’s/family’s choice. Should I ever become President I’m going to have to know who else is going to be listening in or I will exercise my choice to not make the phone call. If I’m going to make what I believe is going to be a personal, private phone call and without telling me the other party puts it on speaker phone for a car full of eavesdroppers I would be livid. It sounds very much like a set-up. And frankly if the widow decides to have a crowd listen in, including a far-left congresscritter who is no friend of Trump or for that matter veterans* she forfeits any expectation of privacy concerning the content of the call. If she wanted it to be private she shouldn’t have had a crowd listen in. She doesn’t get to decide how big or small that crowd has to remain. It might as well be the entire nation now.

    Also, some of those words and those exact words are two entirely different things. Wilson’s story keeps changing. First she said, ““he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” Now according to Wilson’s office she claims Trump said SGT Johnson, “knew what he signed up for, but when it happens, it hurts anyway.” Which is it? Furthermore, I can’t believe this was a one sentence phone call. I’d like to know what else he said as context is important.

    For instance, if I told you about the time a man was relaxing at home with his family when a group of armed men burst in and shot the homeowner in the head, killing him and terrifying the women and children who witnessed everything in the bargain, anybody’s initial reaction would be “that’s horrible.” But the context would make a difference when deciding if a horrible crime had been committed at all.

    You may ask, how could this not be a horrible crime under any circumstance?

    Because that is exactly what happened to Osama Bin Laden.

    *Wilson voted against bills designed to help veterans, such as improving services at the VA and ensuring family of servicemembers killed in action received death benefits in case of a government shut down. She’s pretending at the moment to be outraged at Trump’s “insensitivity” to a grieving widow of a serviceman when Wilson has been far more cruel to veterans and the next of kin of other servicemembers who were KIA merely to score partisan political points.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/us/politics/shutdown-holds-up-death-benefits-for-military-families.html

    Wilson voted against this bill simply because veterans, active duty servicemembers, and their families are merely political pawns. Since she calculated that the press would blame Republicans for any shutdown and she wanted to make it as painful as possible for people. So families of those KIA would have to pay their own way if they wanted to meet the plane at Dover AFB and pay for the funeral out of pocket. The denial of benefits would have been temporary but a lot of families couldn’t have afforded the expense without getting the death benefits up front. While Wilson is pretending to care about SGT Johnson’s widow she would have put other widows out on the street by denying them housing allowances.

    She claims to be concerned about how the troops are treated but her voting record proves otherwise. She just uses them, and right now she’s just using SGT Johnson’s widow to score partisan points. She is nothing more than a political hack.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  284. You certainly did express your anger at Obama in that piece. It was personal. But then you adjusted again and went want to critiquing his policies and not just him. That’s what I’m saying.

    So now I have to link a bunch of posts criticizing Trump’s policies? This is tiresome. Could I get a “I was wrong” and then the reflection that comes with that, before the next baseless criticism is leveled?

    Patterico (e76608)

  285. I wonder if you guys will ever figure out that I criticized both these guys and you simply react differently to criticism of one guy than you do to criticism of the other. Then you blame me for it even though your memory of how I treated Obama is all wrong as I just showed.

    Patterico (e76608)

  286. @288. He’s out of his element. Uncomfortable. And it shows. The presser was a tell.

    “The best job I ever had was as a sergeant in the Marine Corps,” the Washington Post quoted [Kelly] as saying in August, shortly after assuming his White House position. “And after one week on this job, [civilian White House Chief of Staff] I believe the best job I ever had is as a sergeant in the Marine Corps,” Kelly said, according to the Post.

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2017/09/05/kelly-best-job-i-ever-had-was-a-sergeant-in-the-corps/

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  287. Libya borders with niger has been bleading red since 2011, anyone anyone, what happened in that year.

    narciso (d1f714)

  288. First she said, ““he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.”

    no Mr. 57 it was initially reported as “he knew what he signed up for, but it still hurts.”

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  289. @275. Sources and methods.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  290. There isn’t any more for me to say except I am impressed with Sgt. La David Johnson. He is a hero, and I’m sorry this is happening to his wife, children, and child-to-be. Bless his sweet family.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  291. 295..everyone’s dead, but descendants still in power wish to remain.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  292. geostorm!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  293. Stuck In The Middle With You Readin’ More Piddle From You

    Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight
    I’ve known for weeks now that something ain’t right
    I’m so tired of readin’ hatred for Trump
    From on-line friends that slowly turned into chumps

    Clowns on teh left of me, jokers on teh right,
    Here I am, readin’ more piddle from you

    Yes, I’m readin’ more piddle from you,
    And I’m wondering what it is I should do
    It’s so hard to think back some years ago
    On the fun and learnin’ things I should know

    Clowns on the left of me, jokers on the right,
    Here I am, readin’ more piddle from you

    Well, you started up with writin’
    Came across as such a righteous man
    When it’s that clown nose that yer wearin’
    Some drop to bended knee and say,
    Plea-e-e-e-e-eze, plea-e-e-e-e-eze

    Tryin’ to make some sense of it all,
    But I can see it makes no sense at all
    Is it cool to take contrarian stance?
    Only when you make BeenBurned sh*t his pants

    Clowns on teh left of me, jokers on teh right,
    Here I am, readin’ more piddle from you

    Well, you started up with writin’
    Came across as such a righteous man
    When it’s that clown nose that yer wearin’
    Some drop to bended knee and say,
    Plea-e-e-e-e-eze… plea-e-e-e-e-eze

    Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight
    I’ve known for weeks now that something ain’t right
    I’m so tired of readin’ hatred for Trump
    From on-line friends that slowly turned into chumps

    Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
    Here I am, readin’ more piddle from you
    Yes, I’m readin’ more piddle from you
    Readin’ more piddle from you
    Here I am, readin’ more piddle from you

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  294. Just sayin’…

    Colonel Rafferty (2601c0)

  295. I’m so tired of readin’ hatred for Trump

    i worry what they would do if they didn’t have this outlet

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  296. I want to hear the glib justifications for Trumps abject iconoclast failure. Golden opportunity to blow the lid off the Deep State and da Man! squandered..pissed away..

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  297. early days yet

    meanwhile the fbi trashcan sloopies are busy shredding any and all credibility they have left

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  298. His genius for self promotion has apparently tanked. But his instinct for self preservation is spot on. I think his reputation suffers a little with his paramour especially when they protest too much.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  299. Haiku,

    Thank you for the creativity. Sometimes we may not agree on substance, but I appreciate your talent at communicating through lyrics.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  300. Thanks, DRJ. And what I wrote was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else. Oh, and it was fun, too!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  301. You wrote those lyrics haiku?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  302. Only when you make BeenBurned sh*t his pants

    pretty sure he stole that line from Tom Petty

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  303. I just think it’s genius…

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  304. I feel honored…

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  305. Hey nothin’ from nothin’, but I watched more of “Performance” (with James Fox and Mick Jagger) than I could ever sit through before and I learned a few important things:

    I saw that Anita Pallenberg – back in teh Day – was a stunningly attractive woman. I mean drop -dead gorgeous. I also learned that I should not have shared that with my wife, if I didn’t want to get the stink eye on an otherwise wonderful Friday.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  306. You certainly did express your anger at Obama in that piece. It was personal. But then you adjusted again and went want to critiquing his policies and not just him. That’s what I’m saying.
    I would suggest that maybe Trump is a worse individual than is Obama, politics aside, and therefore more easy to criticize on a personal level. So what? Are we not supposed to do that either? Because part of what makes a good president are the foundational principles and values upon which one stands, and how they treat their fellow man, and if a p**** grabbing huckster who sits in the Oval Office isn’t fair game, then I don’t know who is. Maybe Trump should just stop giving us so much to work with.

    Dana (023079)

  307. I would suggest that maybe Trump is a worse individual than is Obama, politics aside, and therefore more easy to criticize on a personal level.

    with Obama there’s never been

    never will be

    politics aside

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  308. I do believe,however, that Trump meant the widow no ill will, yet in typical Trump fashion, just botched it when he clumsily tried to follow what Kelly had told him. And while he said the words, they were not at all spoken in the tone and manner that the Congresswoman led us to believe

    Dana (023079)

  309. if you’re still talking about p**** grabbing going into halloween of 2017

    then

    what?

    that must have really resonated with you

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  310. No you can do that, Dana, just like you can knock how kellyannes chose to record a historic moment, but everyone does that,,what is the novelty there. Just like the vapors over scaramucci, I read bonfire, that’s how bond traders talk. So now they are trying to tear down general Kelly, from a punk like Larry o’donnell,

    narciso (d1f714)

  311. For that whole sordid years since that piffle, which was outtake in a 12 year old interview, from the same network that offered a dantean ‘abandon all hope’ for those who spoke the word Harvey weinstein,

    narciso (d1f714)

  312. precisely

    and what, I would ask

    has Mr. Trump done as president what is redolent of p***y or even grabbing for that matter

    he’s been a gentleman through and through

    if one needs must define him in terms of his masculinity he’s been primarily a paternal figure, and certainly not a clintonesque herpes-riddled lothario to say nothing of a bloodthirsty weaksuck like George W. Bush

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  313. 235 — shows a stunning ignorance about promotion of General Officers.

    NOBODY gets promoted to One Star, from One to Two Stars, from Two to Three Starts, and from Three to Four Stars “for reasons other than merit.”

    That’s LOL funny.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  314. truth be told if harvardtrash buttertub Ted had done something just *once* in his pitiful sadsack life what in any way shape or form invoked the p***y word he just might could have been president today

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  315. Wherecthere are some like admiral Kirby that make me wonder. Frankly,

    narciso (d1f714)

  316. NOBODY gets promoted to One Star, from One to Two Stars, from Two to Three Starts, and from Three to Four Stars “for reasons other than merit.”

    i don’t believe this Mr. shipwreck

    there’s WAY too much douchey low-class trash in the upper echelons of the failmerican military

    it’s not normal

    unless maybe if you work at Uber

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  317. So mane we should focus outrage where it is deserved, but in the case of subsahatsn Africa goose and maverick would have to leave the roon

    narciso (d1f714)

  318. What’s the saying? You’re known by the company you keep?

    Patterico and Lawrence O’Donnell.

    Separated at birth?

    Is Kelly a racist?

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  319. He polished that knob so carefully,
    That they made him ruler of the King’s Navy.

    What military culture considers “merit”, is not necessarily what people who work for a living call “merit”.

    nk (dbc370)

  320. Tests out of bounds, but you see how this conversation can get derailed at the north Korean ruling councils favorite network.

    narciso (d1f714)

  321. Take Malcolm nuance who suggested targets to Al queda, Al jazeeras fairheared boy mohyekdin who had a vanoire like reactionti American sniper.

    narciso (d1f714)

  322. So now I have to link a bunch of posts criticizing Trump’s policies? This is tiresome. Could I get a “I was wrong” and then the reflection that comes with that, before the next baseless criticism is leveled?

    Patterico (e76608) — 10/20/2017 @ 5:18 pm

    First DRJ, now you.

    I’m saying I’m glad when you focus on policy and not the person. When you get personal and resort to insults over character flaws it weakens your argument because the personal overrides the political.

    Do you see what I mean by the difference?

    Your arguments are strongest when you focus on real reasons for supporting or opposing a person and their views. Not just calling someone names because their act is tiresome or makes you feel personally insulted.

    Are there any people you talk about IRL that you call an arsehole every time you mention them to everyone you meet?

    NJRob (336bc4)

  323. the sordid glories of military culture are beauteous and humbling

    but let’s please to keep them far away from government

    history tells us this is for the best

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  324. Political generals and brown-nosing officers have a long and ignoble career in the military. They are especially common in peacetime,and it usually takes a war to get them shunted aside. I seem to remember a number of comments here about how the military under Obama suffered that way.

    So Kelly has no presumption of efficiency or honesty. And anyone who works for Trump should know going in that at some point they are going to have sacrifice their integrity if they want to work for him.

    kishnevi (4a5f25)

  325. I would suggest that maybe Trump is a worse individual than is Obama, politics aside, and therefore more easy to criticize on a personal level. So what? Are we not supposed to do that either? Because part of what makes a good president are the foundational principles and values upon which one stands, and how they treat their fellow man, and if a p**** grabbing huckster who sits in the Oval Office isn’t fair game, then I don’t know who is. Maybe Trump should just stop giving us so much to work with.

    Dana (023079) — 10/20/2017 @ 6:11 pm

    I would suggest otherwise in most extreme terms.

    Obama gladly socialised with murderers and bombers as well as rapists to get where he is.

    Teddy Kennedy fits multiple categories. As does Bill Ayers.

    NJRob (336bc4)

  326. Completely offtopic, but anyone with interest in good music done well needs to put this ASIN into Patterico’s Amazon widget, and click on the buy button:
    B00ETHPJ1U
    The asking price in terms of musical value on the low side.

    (prompted by the fact that I’ve been listening to the recordings in sequence for the last month)

    kishnevi (4a5f25)

  327. 331 — see, that’s the thing about Kelly. He made his way from One Star to Four Stars during wartime, with multiple combat commands in multiple theaters of war.

    I agree with the proposition that in a peace time military, its easier for General Officers to be pulled along by their political supporters – that’s how you get guys like Shalikashvili and Shinseki. The latter’s career was pulled along for 2 decades by Daniel Inouye.

    But wartime doesn’t afford that luxury.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  328. His criticism of Trump is far more personal and vehemently full of hatred towards Trump than he ever did of Obama.

    It’s not a persuasive tactic for me to repeatedly ask someone if they continue to stand by a statement that is obviously wrong. But I get irritated enough by unfair criticism that it can make me combative. So I am curious, NJRob: do you stand by the quoted statement, given the link I gave you to read, which you said you read?

    And if you don’t, does that cause you to question whether your criticism has been entirely fair?

    I asked these questions before but you shifted to a different complaint, and if you have addressed them head on, I missed it.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  329. Are there any people you talk about IRL that you call an arsehole every time you mention them to everyone you meet?

    One guy springs to mind who, any time anyone speaks of him, it is to remark upon what a nasty liar he is. Yes.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  330. And every sensible person I know agrees. It’s a little like having an actual Donald Trump, only it’s someone we interact with.

    If you’re reading this, I don’t mean you!

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  331. And he was an uninpressive artillery officer, he ended up as chief of staff, becauseceveryone despised Wesley Clark. Schoomaker was a fmr head of delta and chief of special ops, who went back tomthr founding with Beckwith.

    narciso (d1f714)

  332. Donald Trump insisted that his overtly racist Muslim Ban would somehow make the United States safer. Anyone with even a basic grasp of reality understood that it served no purpose whatsoever. Now it turns out the Muslim Ban has left the U.S. less safe, as it led to a diplomatic crisis that ended up putting U.S soldiers in danger in Niger – including the four who were killed this month.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 10/20/2017 @ 5:00 pm

    This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read. The US is less safe because instead of letting Muslim terrorists into the country they now have to get into firefights with SOF in Niger? I enjoy getting called names by idiots. This palmer guy has never read the Quran through, and he certainly has never read even a fraction of the literature that comprises the Sunnah. And you have to be the kind of complete idiot capable of ignoring 1200 years (it would be 1400 years if I bought the official but BS Isamic historical narrative) of Islamic jurisprudence.

    You are brain dead, Burn. You actually emote (you don’t think, obviously) that this is cogent analysis.

    I’ve brought up so much information about how Allah commands Muslims to terrorize non-Muslims and kill or violently subjugate them, not in self-defense, but for rejecting Allah and Muhammad that doing it again would be a waste of time.

    Instead I’m going to focus on another way Islam is an evil ideology, no less evil than Nazism or Communism.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5001452/Man-NOT-guilty-rape-did-not-know-illegal.html?ITO=1490

    Man is found NOT guilty of raping his wife as court rules he genuinely believed he could have sex with her whenever he wanted

    -Man cleared of raping his wife after judge said he did not know it was against law
    -Both the man and his wife, a Palestinian, believed husbands had a right to sex
    -Rights groups have expressed disappointment at the ruling and plan a campaign

    Of course they believed it. Marital rape, just like raping infidels, is not a crime in Muslim countries. That’s why when they move to western countries they continue to “play” what they call “the rape game.

    According to Allah and his prophet women don’t have a right to say no. There’s no such thing as consent.

    Surah 2:223

    Your wives are a place of sowing of seed for you, so come to your place of cultivation however you wish and put forth [righteousness] for yourselves. And fear Allah and know that you will meet Him. And give good tidings to the believers.

    This is the Sahih international translation. Other translations say that “Your wives are a tilth for you”

    A tilth is a farmers field; a place for plowing or tilling the soil to plant your seed. The sexual overtones should be obvious be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Which clearly won’t include Ben Burn or the idiot he’s quoting. But for the benefit of others I’ll explain.

    The historical context (if you believe the Islamic historical narrative has any basis in reality, and all the archaeological, numismatic, and documentary evidence says it’s a complete fairy tale) is that when Muhammad and his merry band of Muslim cutthroats made the hijra from Mecca to Medina and started to marry the local women, the Medinan women would refuse to have sex with their Meccan husbands if they didn’t feel like it. So this verse was then “revealed” to Muhammad. A Muslim man’s wives have no more say in how and when her husband can plow her anymore than a field can say no to a farmer. Both are property.

    Surah 4:34

    Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

    Again, this is the Sahih International translation, so it’s important to know that the words in brackets do not exist in the original Arabic. And by the original Arabic I mean the 1924 Cairo version. There is no Quran that goes back to 7th century when Muhammad was supposed to have received “revelation” in the 22 year period before his death in 632 and when the third Caliph Uthman is according to the fairy tale that is the Islamic historical narrative. So the “original Arabic” in the Cairo edition is younger than a lot of people alive today.

    So, again according to the historical fairy tale this verse dates back to the same time period as the earlier verse I cited. The historical narrative is that Islam was a huge leap forward in terms of women’s rights. It was not; not across the board. There were some Arab tribes that were extremely patriarchal and women were mere property just as Islam insists that they are. Others were matriarchal and women had for more rights than under Islam. Today only men can have multiple sex partners; up to four wives and all the Milk al-Yamin (sex slaves) they can capture or buy. In the past in some tribes if a woman wanted to have a child by another man because he had attributes such as being a great warrior that she wanted to pass on to her child she could sleep with him until she got pregnant. And her husband had no say in the matter. Women could divorce their husbands just by turning their tents around. When her husband returned and saw that the tent entrance was facing the opposite direction than it was when he left he had to leave the village without any possessions other than the clothes on his back and whatever was loaded on his camel.

    Under Islam a woman needs permission from a Sharia court in order to divorce her husband, and wife beating and rape aren’t sufficient grounds to get a divorce. Meanwhile a man can divorce his wife simply by saying (in Arabic) “I divorce you.” In the modern age they do it by text message or snapchat.

    Consequently as Muhammad and his merry band of Muslim cutthroats acquired the military power to force the pagan Arabs to convert or die they had to put a lot of “uppity” women who still thought they had the same rights they once had in their place. With the help of Allah and the threat of eternal damnation of course.

    So according to this Aya, Allah is telling women that men are in charge of them their entire lives. Whether their fathers, other close male relatives, or if married their husbands.

    This is because men are intellectually and morally superior to women. Women are stupid, according to the Muhammad in the ahadith, and evidence for that fact is that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man. Women are morally inferior because when they are menstruating they are ritually impure and can’t infect a mosque with their presence while men can go to the mosque every day.

    Of course you can see the problem (not you Ben, people with an IQ over 70). These are rules invented by Muhammad or whoever invented Islam. The documentary evidence based upon 8th century Qurans which based upon textual analysis were constantly being revised over the course of that century as well as the Sirah and ahadith collections which weren’t first fabricated until 200 to 240 years after the person who was alleged to be prophet of Islam died tells us it was a group effort over the course of centuries.

    So, back to exegeting this verse; men are also in charge of women because they spend money to maintain them. For these reason women must be devoutly obedient. And the biggie when it comes to devout obedience is dropping any thing they’re doing and having sex with their husbands on demand. According to several ahadith Muhammad said that if a husband and wife are riding a camel together and he demands sex she must have sex with him on the back of the camel. After all, the farmer’s field can’t tell the farmer when or how he can plow her.

    And interesting point. Under all the major schools of Islamic jurisprudence if women refuse to have sex with their husbands they don’t have to “spend [for maintenance] from their wealth.” After all that’s the basic deal. He feeds and clothes her and puts a roof over her head and in exchange he gets her sexual services. No sexual services and the deal is off. Admittedly some schools of jurisprudence both Sunni and Shia say the husband has to spend the bare minimum so she can live at a subsistence level. In rags in a shed in the yard living on the equivalent of bread and water. Others say he doesn’t have to spend a Dinar on her.

    And of course he can chastise her, send her away from his bed (after all, he can have sex with his other three wives or he can buy a Milk al-Yamin with all the money he’s saving on not feeding or clothing her), and beat her. It’s amusing that this version puts words in brackets that state there’s a sequence a man has to go through before he can beat his wife. Because that’s not at all clear. Some schools of Islamic jurisprudence say the man has to go through this “escalation of force” while others say it’s an a la carte menu of options and if the husband wants to skip right ahead to the beating he can. And as a practical reality it doesn’t matter what school of Islamic law holds sway where the couple live. The man’s testimony is worth twice that of a woman’s. She can say whatever she wants and he can say whatever he wants and he’ll always win.

    Naturally the wife along with the husband thought thought that he could have sex with her anytime he wanted, whether she gave consent or not. The idea that she could give or withdraw consent would never cross her mind. It’s her religion. That’s why if you talk to a Muslim woman who grew up in a Muslim country about these verses you’ll get an entirely different answer than you’ll get from Muslim women born and raised in the West. The Westernized Muslim woman (and men) know enough to know they should be ashamed of them. So they’ll accuse you of taking the verse out of context (I find I always know more about the context than they do). Or they’ll try to minimize it. For instance they’ll claim that the beating has to be so light it’s really just symbolic (not according to teachings of their supposed prophet in the ahadith or 1200 years of Islamic jurisprudence, both of which say a husband can beat the living sh*t out of their wives). The Muslima born and raised in a Muslim country will defend the fact their husbands can’t rape them because sex on demand is their Allah given right. And of course their husbands can beat them because they’re inferior to men, like children are inferior to their parents. And like children, women sometimes need to be brought into line through corporal punishment.

    And thanks to people who think like you, Burns, and that Palmer idiot you cite marital rape is effectively legal not only in Canada but here in the US. There have been similar cases here because of course like Trump’s sensible ban it would be racist to expect Muslims to obey US law.

    That’s enough for now. I won’t cite chapter and verse in the Quran and ahadith that permit Muslim men to rape non-Muslim women, whether it’s Muslims raping Coptic girls in Egypt or Muslim immigrants raping non-Muslim girls across England. I know what they are, just as I know chapter and verse in both the Quran and the ahadith that makes it a duty for Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims including the use of terror tactics. Oh, and speaking of England, these child-sex rings weren’t just in Rotherham, and many of them are still going strong. Thanks to people like you, Ben Burn, and that Palmer moron you imagine is some sort of authority. That opposing Sharia supremacy is just a manifestation of racism. You are blind to reality. Because that’s why police, social workers, etc. across the length and breadth of England work for blind fools like you and they’d at a minimum have to go to one of your Maoist reeducation camps and most likely would simply lose their jobs. And so take a bow, Burns. For your contribution to rampant child rape.

    Don’t even dare complain about Harvey Weinstein since it’s exactly people like you who enable far worse.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  333. Palmer report is where the brain slugs lie and brain cells die. Almost three weeks later, we still don’t know what happened. Was the patrol on foot, or with tracked vehicles, it was a forty man contingent so I understand. Were they in a part of a village. Considered hostile or relatively friendly. What was the disposition of French air support,

    narciso (d1f714)

  334. First she said, ““he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.”

    no Mr. 57 it was initially reported as “he knew what he signed up for, but it still hurts.”

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/20/2017 @ 5:35 pm

    I’ve seen it reported various ways. The way that Pat cites in the above post as “But I guess it still hurts.” And the way I cited, “But it still hurts.” I’ve lost track of which version came first.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  335. It’s not a persuasive tactic for me to repeatedly ask someone if they continue to stand by a statement that is obviously wrong. But I get irritated enough by unfair criticism that it can make me combative. So I am curious, NJRob: do you stand by the quoted statement, given the link I gave you to read, which you said you read?

    And if you don’t, does that cause you to question whether your criticism has been entirely fair?

    I asked these questions before but you shifted to a different complaint, and if you have addressed them head on, I missed it.

    Patterico (9bc0cd) — 10/20/2017 @ 7:58 pm

    To repeat, I meant the constant remarks. When Trump does something that deserves being treated like an arse, (such as his grab em remarks) go for it. But even if your posts where you “complimented” him for doing something good, you still either started or ended the post with personal insults.
    Why?

    Did every post about Obama have a gratuitous swipe at him? That’s what I mean by the level of hatred and anger being worse than towards Obama and what I said in my post about your remarks towards Obama. Obama didn’t care that he was working towards the destruction of the nation, but you were still able to separate that when you spoke about his poor policies. You backed off your personal attacks on him. You don’t even try to do that with the current President.

    Are there any people you talk about IRL that you call an arsehole every time you mention them to everyone you meet?

    One guy springs to mind who, any time anyone speaks of him, it is to remark upon what a nasty liar he is. Yes.

    Patterico (9bc0cd) — 10/20/2017 @ 7:59 pm

    Good to know. Touche.

    I just avoid people like that. Don’t care to spend my time or my thoughts on them.

    And every sensible person I know agrees. It’s a little like having an actual Donald Trump, only it’s someone we interact with.

    If you’re reading this, I don’t mean you!

    Patterico (9bc0cd) — 10/20/2017 @ 8:00 pm

    Thanks. Didn’t think you meant me. I can be obnoxious in personal and even more so online, but I have my work cut out for me if I’m going to obtain Trumpian levels. Plus, I have a better sense of humor, in person at least.

    If I ever do meet you in person, first round is on me. Same as I agreed with Beldar.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  336. Don’t even dare complain about Harvey Weinstein since it’s exactly people like you who enable far worse.

    Steve57 (0b1dac) — 10/20/2017 @ 9:51 pm

    Burnie got the idea from Rachel Maddow who spent 45 minutes on the tenuous connection. Then she got slapped down by a bunch of left wing sites that told her to stop making them look even worse than they are.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  337. it’s a fine mess of pottage indeed but I’ll not partake

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  338. I say this becausecthe finial way, mogadishu was reported, thecdeath of shughart and Gordon seemed illogical, until nark Bowden did the real investigation, specially when it was discovered that Pablo escobar was taken down in a similar way.

    narciso (d1f714)

  339. Ok Pokemon, I can believe, but this is too silly:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/alimhaider/status/921506067460296704/photo/1

    narciso (d1f714)

  340. …The historical context (if you believe the Islamic historical narrative has any basis in reality, and all the archaeological, numismatic, and documentary evidence says it’s a complete fairy tale) is that when Muhammad and his merry band of Muslim cutthroats made the hijra from Mecca to Medina and started to marry the local women, the Medinan women would refuse to have sex with their Meccan husbands if they didn’t feel like it…

    Surah 2:223 also refers to sexual positions. Many Medinan women absolutely refused to have sex in certain positions. So whoever wrote this verse into the Quran wrote that a husband could “come to your place of cultivation however you wish and put forth [righteousness] for yourselves.”

    Anytime the men wanted, however they wanted it.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  341. And in a brundlefly mashup:

    nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/10/20/is-this-the-harvey-weinstein-of-conservative-islam

    narciso (d1f714)

  342. i’ve known for some time that rihanna was dirty dirty harvardtrash and I did mean to tell you but it was never the right time

    and so now here we are

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  343. Rihanna? I’d never hit that.

    nk (dbc370)

  344. Well Chris brown, did literally,

    oh great i’m going to hell now

    i fear i lolled more than was remotely seemly

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  345. Sigh. I know. I have more Rihanna jokes, but it seems you guys already know the punchline.

    nk (dbc370)

  346. Dorsey doesn’t seem to be the smartest knife in the drawer, he knows how intertybes work no?

    narciso (d1f714)

  347. I just avoid people like that. Don’t care to spend my time or my thoughts on them.

    There are some people you cannot avoid. None of the people I am talking about are in my office or judges. But there are some people you simply must interact with.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  348. they was caught by surprise seems like to me

    got in a pickle

    it’s all right there in the report sir

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  349. So this wasnt an operation like in blackhawk down, or even a convoy through a disputed area, like with the four contractors in fallujah, so what is the proper response to panic, or to go after them like the operation in El Salvador in 1985, which wee depicted in high crimes.

    narciso (d1f714)

  350. Mr. narciso who cares what the response is

    they had no business prancing around Niger to begin with

    they’re not the international popo justice squad they’re supposed to be the US Military and they need to start acting like it

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  351. Actually it does matter, the retreat from mogadishu told bin laden, we wee nit series, he followed up in 95 and 96, which attacks on us training bases, on embassies in 98, and the bug enchilada in 2001

    narciso (d1f714)

  352. There are some people you cannot avoid. None of the people I am talking about are in my office or judges. But there are some people you simply must interact with.

    Patterico (9bc0cd) — 10/21/2017 @ 4:01 am

    True. But you can limit those interactions to as few as possible. Better for your heart too.

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  353. Hi many art going to vote for villaraigosa, even after has mismanaged the place, is there even an alternative like riordan in the 90s.

    narciso (d1f714)

  354. The only thing o really find dissapiinting is we havent struck back yet:

    http://.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/10/the-week-in-pictures-continuing-liberal-freakout-edition.php

    narciso (d1f714)

  355. i’m still not at all convinced that prancing around the hinterlands of Niger is the highest and best use of scarce resources, but if they insist on prancing about they should do so with professionalism

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  356. Not a Texas fan, are you, NJRob?

    DRJ (15874d)

  357. Not a Texas fan, are you, NJRob?

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/21/2017 @ 7:50 am

    Sports teams? Hell no. I’m a Yankees fan and bleed pinstripes. It’s a crime that Mattingly isn’t in the Hall of Fame.

    Work ethic and freedom, damn right I am. I’ve visited the state before, have friends that have moved there and still consider it a possible location for the future.

    Not sure where anything I’ve posted would show a dismissal of Texas.

    Do you care to clarify?

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  358. Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts: “There’s two dead women there… and two little kids. They scalped them all, all four of ’em. Bounty hunters. The government down here pays 200 pesos a head for men, 100 for women and 50 for those kids. They kill any Indian and then claim they are Apache. I don’t see how any man can sink so low. Must be Texans… the lowest form of white man there is.”

    — Robert Duvall as Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts in “Geronimo: An American Legend”

    I vehemently disagree with that assessment. The Texans I know and have worked with over the last 20 years and consider friends are among the finest, most decent and capable people I have crossed paths with.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  359. i like Clea Duvall a lot she’s not related to Robert as far as i know

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  360. Movies! Pah! Hollywood BS. The governments of Sonora and Chihuahua did pay bounties for Indian scalps, but that was from around 1835 to 1850. The Mexican-American War pretty much ended the practice by the time Al Sieber was eight years old.

    nk (dbc370)

  361. And I’ll wager the Cossacks and the Chechen were the same way. Interestingly I discovered that frank Herbert based the firemen on the latter, nit the berbers

    narciso (d1f714)

  362. To repeat, I meant the constant remarks. When Trump does something that deserves being treated like an arse, (such as his grab em remarks) go for it. But even if your posts where you “complimented” him for doing something good, you still either started or ended the post with personal insults.
    Why?

    Why do you care?

    I insulted Obama plenty. You never complained about that. Indeed, you pitched in with your own attacks on his character.

    You have no non-partisan preference for substance over personal attacks. This preference simply comes to the fore when Trump is the topic. That’s fine: if you think Trump is a better person than Obama, just say so. But don’t try to convert that into a high-minded preference for non-personal discourse.

    It reminds me of Kelly being STUNNED that the Congresswoman would even listen to a phone call to a Gold Star family. High-minded principle: the privacy of such calls. Actual motive: protect Trump. Which is why we will never ever ever ever see Kelly complain about the other family who took their call from Trump which they appreciated and put it on YouTube. Because it is not actually about the privacy with him. It is about Trump looking bad. The privacy justification kicks in only when a family for whom the call went bad shares that call with a Democrat Congresswoman who dislikes Trump. If another family for whom the call went well shares it with the whole world, there is nothing to be STUNNED about.

    If you disagree that Trump is a bad guy, we will never see eye to eye.
    If you agree but would rather focus on issues, why do you get so out of sorts when I say true things about Trump’s character, and why were you all good with personal attacks on Obama?

    We all know why. Partisan politics. It’s what drives your whole attitude here. So don’t fight it. Embrace it.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  363. True. But you can limit those interactions to as few as possible. Better for your heart too.

    What am I supposed to do if such a person is my opponent in court? Whine that I don’t want to be around them?

    No. I am polite. In front of a jury I maintain my composure while they call me a liar and accuse me of racism and manipulation of evidence and so forth. And the jury sees such attacks for what they are.

    Unfortunately politics is not like a courtroom and dignity and honesty do not always win the day. Ted Cruz’s mistake was not realizing that he was in a clown show. He thought that behaving with dignity would win the day. Not in this clown show, with the people that Williamson describes getting a vote that cancels out mine.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  364. The day when Cruz talked to the toothless yokel in Indiana summed up everything I just said. He was trying to reason with a guy who had not two brain cells to rub together, and instead kept chanting “LYIN’ TED!” And everybody who thinks like he does thought he, and not Cruz, “won” that exchange.

    Including Trump and all his most militant brainless cultists.

    Clown show.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  365. These are the reasons I would never enter politics — or go on a TV show where people scream or interrupt each other.

    If your manner in life is to respond to personal and ugly attacks with composure, as my manner is in my real and professional life, you also have to avoid environments where that manner is doomed to be unsuccessful. Nobody is dignified in a clown show.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  366. You’ve got me monologuing here, but: this is also why I never go to the comments sections of a partisan lefty blog to talk policy. I did that at various times in the past and I learned through long and painful experience that a calm and respectful demeanor gets you nowhere in such environments. It’s like walking into a room wearing a tuxedo and a calm, purposeful demeanor. Does your impeccable dress and unimpeachable demeanor keep you from looking like a fool? Not if the room you walked into is the monkey cage at the zoo, and the monkeys are all flinging shit at you.

    Part of dignity is knowing to stay out of the monkey cage to begin with.

    Maybe your point is that politics is a monkey cage and so we should cheer Trump going in there and throwing his own shit at the monkeys. Fight fire with fire and shit with shit, I guess.

    I would rather do what is possible to ensure that politics is not like a monkey cage. But I’ll de damned if I ever actively cheer my guy flinging shit. All that does is ensure that everybody is covered in shit. That makes people with brains like monkeys laugh. But it does not accomplish a damned thing.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  367. You’ve got me monologuing here, but: this is also why I never go to the comments sections of a partisan lefty blog to talk policy.

    And here I was, thinking it was my duty to do my best for my country.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  368. we’re counting on you Mr. 57!

    there’s very little discussion anymore about what that might entail, doing one’s best for one’s country

    it’s considered gauche and trumpy anymore

    too redolent of making america great again

    so you have to let your own moral compass be your guide in this

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  369. Somebody you should know.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/13/local/me-then13

    ‘The Pied Piper of Saipan’ Stood Tall During WWII
    November 13, 2005|Cecilia Rasmussen | Times Staff Writer

    “The Pied Piper of Saipan” almost didn’t get into World War II. Guy Louis “Gabby” Gabaldon was just 5 feet 3 and had a perforated eardrum; the Navy rejected him.

    But when the Marines learned he could speak Japanese — gritty slang picked up on the streets of Boyle Heights — that was a different story.

    That’s how Gabaldon came to capture more than 1,100 Japanese single-handedly, leading soldier and civilian alike to safety…

    Gaboldon was Mexican. We employed him to save Japanese lives. Yeah, that’s just how racist we are. B**ls*t.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  370. there’s very little discussion anymore about what that might entail, doing one’s best for one’s country

    A little discussion of what we’ve done right might be appropriate.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  371. devious

    i like it!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  372. Gaboldon was American as you and me, according to the records. Whoops.

    Smile. Your day is probably going better.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7pRfix_sNg

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  373. that was 16 years ago

    and like a shark to this day the Tarawa is never-resting – always moving forward through the oft-uncertain water

    they’ve been glimpsed on every horizon, and, ironically, the doomed ship and crew have come to be thought of as harbingers of good luck and prosperity

    so keep an eye out for them

    remain watchful where they did not

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  374. Definitely, imagine a law and order case where mccoynaccepts a plea from doesn’t go after the higherups

    narciso (d1f714)

  375. Patterico:

    It reminds me of Kelly being STUNNED that the Congresswoman would even listen to a phone call to a Gold Star family. High-minded principle: the privacy of such calls.

    Kelly and others were in the room when Trump made the call:

    Q Thanks, Sarah. Let’s go to the President’s tweet this morning, if we can. What proof does President Trump have when he says Congresswoman Wilson is not telling the truth? Are there recordings of his phone call with Myeshia Johnson?

    MS. SANDERS: No, but there were several people in the room from the administration that were on the call, including the Chief of Staff, General John Kelly.

    Why is it okay for them to hear Trump’s side of the call (assuming it wasn’t on speakerphone), but the family doesn’t get to let other people listen, too? I understand wanting to protect the family’s privacy but does that mean the President’s side of the conversation isn’t sacred?

    DRJ (0280d9)

  376. The Pied Piper of Saipan. I guess it’s only by repetition I can convince myself that the pain we inflicted on those who later became my in-laws was necessary. Later I met Japanese WWII vets who were glad we dropped the Atom Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It wasn’t hard. They assured us they would have done it to us if they had the chance. And somebody needed to end the f***ing war.

    Had it not been for the A-bomb I never would have amounted more than a wet dream, in the mind of a 17 year old.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  377. The day when Cruz talked to the toothless yokel in Indiana summed up everything I just said.

    OTOH, that toothless yokel is just as important electorally as I am, and he and people like him have been left unemployable for some time now. In 1980, he’d have work as a carpenter, or a plumber’s assistant or a parking lot attendant. Now, he doesn’t and he’s pissed. And it’s everyone else’s fault.

    And to some degree that’s true, never mind his general sloth and inattention at school. And that some guy in California thinks he’s a toothless yokel and white trash is just another item on the resentment list.

    Cruz was Brutus to Trump’s Marc Antony, trying to reason with people who wanted froth and promises.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  378. general “he who walks among the stones” kelly wasn’t listening with the intention of being all tacky and exploiting it later like skankatha wilson

    he was there to help execute the call and to share his experience

    and there’s nothing effing sacred about these calls lol

    they’re just respectful – very similar to the way you’d call a guy’s widow if he fell into the sausage vat at your sausage factory

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  379. I’m getting bombarded by ads saying how complicated ads are concerning climate control.

    It’s either too hot for him or too cold for her.

    HELLO!! Atlantic ice patrol!!

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  380. Malia Obama’s car is DISGUSTING

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  381. Used to people who were angry and felt abandoned didn’t vote, but Trump motivated them to vote.

    DRJ (0280d9)

  382. Congresswoman wilson, really thiufh she could pawn the narrative off, like when she put a bulleye on Zimmerman, ostensibly she cares about the girls of maidiguru, this who la David Johnson was trying to prevent from doing again.

    narciso (d1f714)

  383. OTOH, that toothless yokel is just as important electorally as I am, and he and people like him have been left unemployable for some time now. In 1980, he’d have work as a carpenter, or a plumber’s assistant or a parking lot attendant. Now, he doesn’t and he’s pissed. And it’s everyone else’s fault

    It always is.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  384. MS. SANDERS: No, but there were several people in the room from the administration that were on the call, including the Chief of Staff, General John Kelly.

    Could “on the call” mean “listening in”? Did Kelly complain about a politician listening to a “sacred call”, knowing that he had done the very same thing? Does he not realize he’s a civilian politician now, not military?

    DRJ (0280d9)

  385. Guy Louis “Gabby” Gabaldon

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053901

    Kevin M (752a26)

  386. OTOH, that toothless yokel is just as important electorally as I am,

    No, he’s not. You’re completely unimportant electorally. Or you were with the primary schedule last year. The vote of Mr. It’s Everybody’s Else’s Fault I Don’t Brush My Teeth was far more important than yours. And he didn’t like LYIN’ TED and so there you have it.

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  387. Used to people who were angry and felt abandoned didn’t vote, but Trump motivated them to vote.

    this is so fascinating to me DRJ

    cause of it suggests to me at least from a marketing perspective we could be witnessing a very significant market shift

    there’s a critical mass aspect here

    the early adopters came out in 2016, but:

    number one a lot of voters were unsure about this new product and didn’t buy-in by the November deadline

    number two a lot of voters lived in Hillary states (and cities) and felt their votes would be useless (states President Trump ended up winning)

    now that they know this product’s a winner, they’re going to be very receptive to messagings

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  388. This product is shit.

    How do I get the script on my phone dammit

    Patterico (9bc0cd)

  389. A telephone call from the President should be something you invite the neighbors over for. Maybe Kelly was stunned that Trump was also held in such high regard, like a regular President.

    nk (dbc370)

  390. It’s completely unnecessary to address the Legion of racial stereotypes and simple-minded generalities spewed by Steve57 because nothing is going to move his needle . But maybe this..

    Man is found NOT guilty of raping his wife as court rules he genuinely believed he could have sex with her whenever he wanted

    -Man cleared of raping his wife after judge said he did not know it was against law
    -Both the man and his wife, a Palestinian, believed husbands had a right to sex
    -Rights groups have expressed disappointment at the ruling and plan a campaign

    How barbaric and backward some cultures are compared to the West. It wasn’t that long ago you were eating bananas and copulating with every female in heat, Dave57

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  391. it is a very good product but remember in the primaries it’ll be juxtaposed with some snooty nevertrump wanker like harvardtrash ben sasse or – god willing – prissy-assed Jeff Flake

    that kind of foil effect’s going to be wonderful for to help the incumbent burnish his brand and hone his messagings (in this case President Trump)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  392. Steve57, that is..

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  393. @395. Does he not realize he’s a civilian politician now, not military?

    Not really. See 276/282/292.

    You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. He even looks uncomfortable wearing a suit and tie, not a uniform. And as he has said, he didn’t really seek or want the gig and his favorite job was as a Marine sergeant. As a general he was likely a good organizer but in this civilian gig, not a good manager. A strong manager would have put this fire out Thursday- which was what he was supposed to do. Instead, he inflamed it– and his boss doesn’ help by continuing to tweet. If this was a ‘normal’ presidency, he’d never have made the short list for CoS. But in Trump’s case, he took who he could get.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  394. A telephone call from the President should be something you invite the neighbors over for. Maybe Kelly was stunned that Trump was also held in such high regard, like a regular President.

    nk (dbc370) — 10/21/2017 @ 5:02 pm

    I’ve read this twice and despite trying not to, I laughed both times. Thanks for making me laugh, nk.

    DRJ (15874d)

  395. I think I’ll look for my old college textbook on marketing. As I remember it, classic sales pitch is to reduce it to a simple choice and make the sucker customer believe it’s his choice.

    nk (dbc370)

  396. bingo!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  397. De nada, DRJ.

    I might have more about this, later. Whether or not I am an elite, I am an elitist, if only in the manner of the peasant who will tug his forelock for his baron but not for his neighbor, and it burns my bunions not to have the Presidency be an awesome and wonderful thing. But that did not start with Trump.

    nk (dbc370)

  398. Trump’s decision means that thousands of formerly classified documents related to Kennedy’s assassination will be unveiled next week in compliance with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which states that the federal government must release them by Oct. 26, 2017.

    but of course some whiny pig at the NSC is butthurt

    Additionally, Politico reported that Trump administration officials were concerned that some of the documents created in the 1990s contain information on recent U.S. intelligence programs and might not be released.

    […]

    “There will be a request made to the President to withhold documents, absolutely no question about that,” said the NSC official, who agreed to be interviewed only on the condition of anonymity. “There are definitely files related to sources and methods that agencies are asking to withhold.”

    so if the incompetent trash at the NSC knew damn well documents needed to be released in 2017

    why were they salting docs in the 90s with crap that would reveal sources and methods?

    I seriously doubt they in fact did.

    I think they’re just liars.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  399. Peak crazy but you could still strain out a point:
    nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/the-issue-that-could-lose-the-next-election-for-democrats.html

    narciso (d1f714)

  400. Remember the 28 pages and all the notations that belied the nation there were any sources and methods that were compromised

    narciso (d1f714)

  401. he uses a LOT of words

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  402. Trump evil, but democrats still stupid to hang their hat on illegal immigration.

    narciso (d1f714)

  403. President Trump’s a giving loving person what wakes up every morning and sets out to make America great again.

    I admire him very much.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  404. I think nothing is more gratifying than seeing how weak and pathetic even Ben burn is acknowledging his own position is turning out to be.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  405. i had a banana last week it was so good

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  406. I know an actually informative piece there, not surprising considering the byline:
    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13043672/four-men-killed-niger

    narciso (d1f714)

  407. The views which contributed to rape laws not being applicable in marriage can be traced, at least partially, to 17th century English common law, which was imported to the British American colonies. The 17th-century English jurist, Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676), stated the position of the common law in The History of the Pleas of the Crown (posthumously, 1736) that a “husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind to her husband which she cannot retract”. The ruling, although no legal record of which is found earlier than Hale, likely relied on even earlier standards. In a case of Lord Audley’s (1488-1544), for instance, he cites the jurist Bracton (c. 1210- c. 1268) in support of this rule, said to derived from laws of King Æthelstan (r. 927-939) where upon the law holds that even “were the party of no chaste life, but a whore, yet there may be ravishment: but it is a good plea to say she was his concubine”.[1] This would continue to be accepted as a statement of the law in England and Wales until it was overturned by the House of Lords in the case of R. v. R in 1991,[2] where it was described as an anachronistic and offensive legal fiction.

    The strong historical influence of Christianity in the US may have also played a role: the Bible at 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 explains that one has a “conjugal duty” to have sexual relations with one’s spouse (in sharp opposition to sex outside marriage which is considered a sin) and states that “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent (…)”[3] – and this is interpreted by some conservative religious figures as rejecting the possibility of marital rape.[4]

    In the United States, prior to the mid-1970s marital rape was exempted from ordinary rape laws. The exemption is also found in the 1962 Model Penal Code, which stated that “A male who has sexual intercourse with a female not his wife is guilty of rape if: (…)”.[5]

    In some states, courts have struck down the marital exemption as unconstitutional. In the 1984 New York Court of Appeals case of People v. Liberta, judge Sol Wachtler stated that “a marriage license should not be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape his wife with impunity. A married woman has the same right to control her own body as does an unmarried woman”.[6] Similarly, in Alabama, the marital exemptions from the sodomy law (Williams v. State (1986)[7]) and from the rape law (Merton v. State (1986)[8]) were found unconstitutional.

    By 1993, all states had withdrawn the marital rape exemptions, the last states to do so being Oklahoma and North Carolina[9] (both in 1993) or the exemption had been declared judicially to be unconstitutional.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_(United_States_law)

    That quote doesn’t deal with the inability of spouses to testify against each other, which also waited for the 1990s to be dealt with.

    kishnevi (07cb64)

  408. Why is my comment in moderation?

    kishnevi (07cb64)

  409. Wasn’t it AFRICOM that did and/or was supposed to respond in Benghazi?

    DRJ (15874d)

  410. It’s always because of links or words, kishnevi. More than 4-5 links will do it. Certain words, too, and some of them can seem inocuous.

    DRJ (15874d)

  411. It was, but africom relies on assets from adjacent commands from eucom and centcom west, that sector of niger is close to Malian birder, but not an active zone in its own right, you would be struck to see howchard that info is to gleanm

    narciso (d1f714)

  412. I know there was an expletive by Michael stipe in a beast piece, that I put in a bloc, and it was still flagged.

    narciso (d1f714)

  413. Approved. The offending word was “whore.” You can thank happyfeet for that. I added that one to the filter myself, because of him.

    Patterico (294515)

  414. I think it would be funny if you added a new happyfeet word to the list every week. Like “tatted” or “slicked” or “sleazy”.

    Davethulhu (719fd1)

  415. i was over the whole word anyways

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  416. The staffers describe an amateur secretary of state who has “checked out” and effectively removed himself from major decision making.

    About 200 State Department jobs require Senate confirmation. But the Senate cannot confirm nominees it does not have. More than nine months into the new administration, most of the senior State Department positions—assistant and deputy assistant secretary posts—remain unfilled.

    it’s quite possible tillerboobs is the best secretary of state we’ve had in our lifetimes

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  417. It is a hoary old word, and mainly applied derogatorily to amateurs these days. “Sex worker” is now de rigueur for professionals, except when it is “victim of sex trafficking”.

    nk (dbc370)

  418. they’re all gonna be robots really soon (i know this guy what has hbo)

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  419. There are synonyms that work the same way:

    http://nypost.com/2017/10/20/what-dubya-missed-about-nationalism

    narciso (d1f714)

  420. I miss my wife’s cooking… when I can.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  421. Wasn’t it AFRICOM that did and/or was supposed to respond in Benghazi?

    DRJ (15874d) — 10/21/2017 @ 6:51 pm

    Yes. And I don’t blame AFRICOM for for the abject failure that was Benghazi.

    https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/10/readout-president-s-meeting-senior-administration-officials-our-prepared

    Readout of the President’s Meeting with Senior Administration Officials on Our Preparedness and Security Posture on the Eleventh Anniversary of September 11th

    Earlier today the President heard from key national security principals on our preparedness and security posture on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of September 11th. Over the past month, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan has convened numerous meetings to review security measures in place. During the briefing today, the President and the Principals discussed specific measures we are taking in the Homeland to prevent 9/11 related attacks as well as the steps taken to protect U.S. persons and facilities abroad, as well as force protection. The President reiterated that Departments and agencies must do everything possible to protect the American people, both at home and abroad.

    I spent 20 years in service to this country before Benghazi ever happened. I’ve never seen anything like this. It stinks. The Obama administration was putting out statements about how ready they were for anything. And they didn’t reorient one damned single asset. Meanwhile, using my own meager Open Source Intelligence sources (OSINT) I knew they had actionable intel. Yet they didn’t act. All they had to do was move some sort of quick reaction force to Sicily and they could have been anywhere along the North African coastline in minutes.

    But no assets were moved. Obama just issued statements.

    It stinks, DRJ, to high heaven.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  422. A booknabiut the seals, some years identified six different measures if recourse to the Benghazi operation from cruise missiles to see ail forces detachment, there was no particular reason for this patrol to up armored, and air cover didn’t work at close distances.

    narciso (d1f714)

  423. What I heard on TV is that there are reports that
    –a larger force was initially requested, but not approved
    –and/or request for support after fighting began was not approved
    In both claims the blockage was at the local level and involved no one in DC, unlike Benghazi
    Also claimed
    –French planes called in for air support were not permitted to bomb the jihadis, but could only pretend they were about to bomb them. Which sounds silly, but this is the French after all.

    kishnevi (b9b7a2)

  424. I don’t blame the military either, Steve57. I think they would have gone but were told to stand down.

    DRJ (15874d)

  425. For some veterans, John Kelly’s remarks add to a worrying military-civilian divide – some random-ass wapo propaganda slut

    way I figure it the further we can divide pompous military trash like General Kelly from good honest hard-working american civilians what get up every morning and serve their country the better off we are

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  426. General Electric profit falls, missing expectations, will cut $20 billion in businesses
    USA TODAY Oct 20, 2017

    wow this is a measure of how dependent these GE piggy-sluts had become on the welfares the food stamp administration slopped out to them

    bloated ge piggies

    pro-tip: don’t stand downwind

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  427. Good grief, the turtles are larger all the way down, yes there are question, among other things the reliability of those tribal elders, who remind me a might bit ofcthe Feb 17th martyrs

    narciso (d1f714)

  428. well at least we’ve kicked off the discussion

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  429. But, DRJ, we were being told in the days leading up to the anniversary of 9/11 that the military was being stood up. Again, for emphasis:

    Earlier today the President heard from key national security principals on our preparedness and security posture on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of September 11th. Over the past month, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan has convened numerous meetings to review security measures in place. During the briefing today, the President and the Principals discussed specific measures we are taking in the Homeland to prevent 9/11 related attacks as well as the steps taken to protect U.S. persons and facilities abroad, as well as force protection. The President reiterated that Departments and agencies must do everything possible to protect the American people, both at home and abroad.

    The issue I have is the military was never told to stand up. A government doesn’t need to issue stand down orders if the assets are already out of position. The Obama administration was issuing empty press statements on the one hand, and doing its level best on the other to make a meaningful reaction impossible on the other.

    You tell me, DRJ, what would you call that?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  430. John Brennan lol

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  431. well at least we’ve kicked off the discussion

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/21/2017 @ 9:11 pm

    Plus I’m going to tone my beach body for Christmas in the Caribbean thanks to the projectile vomiting. Happy days!

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  432. This should have been the discussion, from the beginning,

    narciso (d1f714)

  433. ugh

    lil brudder and his family is going to cost plusorico for xmas

    and they’re trying to line up some volunteer work they can do while they’re there because jesus

    blech

    but they’re gonna do marmalade too so i’m kinda jealous not that i’d ever spend go and spend money there on those hateful ungrateful people

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  434. oops

    not that i’d ever spend go and spend money there on those hateful ungrateful people

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  435. This should have been the discussion, from the beginning,

    narciso (d1f714) — 10/21/2017 @ 9:26 pm

    I’ll send you pics when I get really “swoll.”

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  436. #MeToo!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  437. From the workouts. Especially the biceps curls.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  438. Well not the swoll, you know what I mean.

    narciso (d1f714)

  439. Well not the swoll, you know what I mean.

    narciso (d1f714) — 10/21/2017 @ 9:36 pm

    Yeah, that’s why I mentioned it.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  440. Sicko

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  441. We are nearing another honored holiday. Because what is a holiday, but a holy day. A holy day as commemorated by wreath ceremonies. Like what we should be doing to commemorate the various engagements that these high holy days comprise the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

    Attention to citation:

    THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
    Washington

    The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the
    SILVER STAR MEDAL posthumously to

    PAUL HENRY CARR, GUNNER’S MATE THIRD CLASS
    UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE

    for service as set forth in the following

    CITATION:

    “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity as Gun Captain of a 5″/38 Mount on the USS Samuel B. ROBERTS, in action against enemy Japanese forces off Samar Island during the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea, October 25, 1944. With the power of the rammer lost and mechanical failures in the ammunition hoist, CARR manned his station steadfastly in the face of continuous close-range fire of enemy guns during an attack by a numerically superior Japanese surface force on the Samuel B. Roberts. By his outstanding technical skill and courageous initiative, CARR was instrumental in causing rapid and heavy fire from the gun to inflict damage upon an enemy heavy cruiser. Although mortally wounded by the premature detonation of a powder charge, fired by hand, CARR tried unassisted to load and ram the only projectile available to that mount after order to abandon ship had been given. His aggressive determination of duty reflected the highest credit upon CARR and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

    For the President,
    /s/ James Forrestal
    Secretary of the Navy

    From the book “Little Wolf at Leyte”, Appendix E, page 124 by J. Henry Doscher, Jr., CAPT., USNR (Ret), author of “Subchaser in the South Pacific”. Page adapted from that of Robert Jon Cox.

    On February 26, 1983, the day the USS CARR (FFG 52) was launched, the governor of the state of Oklahoma proclaimed the day to be “Paul Henry Carr Day.”

    Leyte was not just another day. We, promised the people of the Philippines, that they would be free of all foreign occupation by 1940 something. We kept our promise.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  442. I think it would be funny if you added a new happyfeet word to the list every week. Like “tatted” or “slicked” or “sleazy”.

    Or “Harvard”

    Kevin M (752a26)

  443. What am I supposed to do if such a person is my opponent in court? Whine that I don’t want to be around them?

    No. I am polite. In front of a jury I maintain my composure while they call me a liar and accuse me of racism and manipulation of evidence and so forth. And the jury sees such attacks for what they are.

    Unfortunately politics is not like a courtroom and dignity and honesty do not always win the day. Ted Cruz’s mistake was not realizing that he was in a clown show. He thought that behaving with dignity would win the day. Not in this clown show, with the people that Williamson describes getting a vote that cancels out mine.

    Patterico (9bc0cd) — 10/21/2017 @ 1:07 pm

    You do your job and do it well like I’m sure you always do. I’m talking about people with whom we choose to interact. Day to day occurrences. Friends and family.

    I really do want to thank you for taking all the time you have to respond to my remarks. I know Trump just sets off all your sensors because of the type of person he is. I’ll try and accept that from your posts.

    I’m more angry at the GOP than Trump because of the promises they’ve never delivered upon. They’ve led conservatives on with their platform and promises and never delivered. I’ve interacted with Christie in NJ and Rep. Lance and they’re both awful people (IMHO). Don’t care about anything other than money and votes. I feel almost all on both sides are like that.

    How can we change things when we keep electing the same wretches to office who promise but don’t deliver?

    NJRob (7f4bec)

  444. Thinning the Herd to the tune of 9 million deaths from air/water pollution, annually

    http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and-health

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  445. Kevin,

    Maybe it should be “Harvardtrash” instead of “Harvard.”

    DRJ (15874d)

  446. harvardtrash is so good

    bow down before the ones you serve

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  447. sleazy corrupt fbi turd robert mueller and his sleazy little fbi dog Andrew Weissmann both went to Princeton!

    now they’re both caught up in a huge scandal and everyone knows how corrupt and trashy they are 🙁

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  448. Let us bow down before and serve God, happyfeet.

    DRJ (15874d)

  449. we can do that

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  450. Sorry if my previous wasn’t clear. Every October I am reminded of the heroics of the “expendables” at Leyte Gulf. Paul Henry Carr served in one of them; the Sammy B.

    https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59895479

    He died at his gun mount after it had lost power, losing the air injection system that expelled the hot gas from the barrel. He kept firing knowing the inevitable would happen. He and everyone aboard the little boys had no choice; their tiny force of expendables had to take on Kurita’s capital ships to protect the the landing force. A round cooked off and killed everyone in his mount. Including Carr, but not immediately. Rescuers found him ripped open from groin to neck and gutted like a fish holding a five inch shell, and he begged them to help him get one more shot off at the enemy. They took him out and laid him on the deck and went off to aid others. When they came back a few minutes later Carr wasn’t there. He had crawled back to his gun and was still trying to load it. When his friends finally pulled him out he was dead.

    He rightfully got a Fit Seven named after him.

    But why the h3ll isn’t there a new USS Melvin, or a Barry Atkins? The Melvin, skippered by Atkins, is the only destroyer in history that ever has or ever will sink a battleship. The Fuso in the battle of the Surigao strait.

    http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/pix1/0568008.jpg

    They’re naming ships after $%#&ing Cesar Chavez and John Murtha (the crew has contemptuously nicknamed that scow the “Fat Bastard”). Why not give the Sailors a ship they can be proud of.

    This is an especially sad anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf as Bill Campbell died in March of this year at 95. He was the assistant gunnery officer in the Melvin and had a front row seat in the gun director when the Melvin pressed the attack against the Fuso. After the ship launched its torpedoes and turned to make its tactical retreat he recalled Atkins was pushing the ship so hard he thought the fantail was going to shake off. I had talked to him a few times by phone over the years and although I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me but he always treated me like an old friend and he was a great guy.

    If you are so inclined raise a glass to Bill Campbell and all the iron men who fought at Leyte. And call your Congresscritter on Monday and tell him/her there needs to be another USS Melvin or a USS Atkins. Cut this stupid naming sh*t out and start giving names to ships with a real history behind them. It’s why I contacted Bill Campbell in the first place. I told him I’d push for it. He and his crew deserve to be remembered. Help me out, please.

    I hope all of you have put up your Leyte Gulf tree and lights. I have.

    Hijack off.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  451. * He rightfully got a Fit Seven named after him.

    That should have been a Fig Seven, an OHP guided missile Frigate.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  452. Why not give the Sailors a ship they can be proud of.

    team obama’s willful and enthusiastic desecration of the military with the cooperation of coward-ass war hero poopstain mccain is easily one of the more vile aspects of the obama legacy

    as well as an aspect of his legacy that promises to be among the most enduring

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  453. Bowe Bergdahl: US treated me worse than the Taliban

    The 31-year-old sergeant told British TV journalist Sean Langan in an interview reported in The Sunday Times of London: “At least the Taliban were honest enough to say, ‘I’m the guy who’s gonna cut your throat.’ ”

    That got him less upset than the “administrative duties” the Army assigned him while awaiting trial, he said.

    “Here, it could be the guy I pass in the corridor who’s going to sign the paper that sends me away for life,’’ he said.

    “We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs.”

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  454. Pursuing Idiocracy since 1964

    “The third-quarter fundraising reports paint a gloomy picture for many Republicans. Rep. Steve Knight of California raised only $144,000 in the last three months, less than the total of two lesser-known Democratic challengers. Veteran Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey brought in only $154,000—just over one-third the amount of his leading Democratic rival, retired Navy helicopter pilot Mikie Sherrill. In the Houston area, Rep. John Culberson, who typically doesn’t face competitive races, raised only $172,000 in a Democratic-trending district that backed Hillary Clinton last year.”

    https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/659667?unlock=FALH9NUB4D9E32M2

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  455. There is some peril considering Brother Trump the Authoritarian did an EO on martial law….
    http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/above-all-the-junta-expands-its-claim-to-power.html

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  456. Betcha Trump didn’t bury it again is because it might hurt Mexico.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  457. Got a few questions for you, Burnie bro, since you’re apparently impossible to embarrass. Regarding my “legion of racial stereotypes.” And yes I know you consider it unnecessary to address them. But, as every witness to our exchanges has to admit, you have to say that because it’s impossible for you to address the fact that they are not racial stereotypes.

    1. What race were the southern European Albanian Muslims convicted of plotting an attack on Fort Dix?

    2. Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director of CAIR was born Douglas Hooper in a family of ethnic Norwegians. What race is he? Has it changed? If he has brothers or sisters are they still whiter than Cool Whip while Ibrahim is down with the brown?

    3. Are Arabs the same race as Indonesians? Or, are Muslim Arabs and Muslim Indonesians a different race than Christian Arabs and Christian Indonesians?

    4. Do you just accuse me of racism because you are an idiot (hint: any answer other than “Yes” is incorrect).

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  458. I’m especially curious about question #1, Burnie Bro. My family is also from southern Europe. Just a short boat ride across the Adriatic to Albania.

    Dazzle us with your fascinating racial theories.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  459. You can’t help but conflate all Muslims as Jihadi when it’s the same percentage of militants as we have in Paddock- type sociopaths. Would you enjoy that generality?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  460. Many like to assail anti- semitism because it’s bigoted, even though not all Jews are semitic..

    All Arabs are Semitic.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  461. team obama’s willful and enthusiastic desecration of the military with the cooperation of coward-ass war hero poopstain mccain is easily one of the more vile aspects of the obama legacy

    as well as an aspect of his legacy that promises to be among the most enduring

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/22/2017 @ 8:34 am

    I don’t know what happened to you but, one day, all of a sudden, you started to make sense.

    Yes, McStain is mostly responsible for the mess. The worst happened on his watch. It’s just too much for me to go into detail about it. Emblematic of the man:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410616/Sen-John-McCain-playing-POKER-crucial-Senate-hearing-military-action-Syria.html

    Arizona, hello!!! WTF are you doing inflicting this corrupt derelict on the nation?

    Let me ask you a question, Mr. feets, as I don’t expect an answer or at least not an honest answer from burnie bro.

    Is it racist of me to look at Michael Adebolajo’s video testimony or Nidal Hassan’s power point presentation about jihad and react by saying, “Hey, I know what books they’re getting those quotes from?”

    And, moreover, to acknowledge that according to those books they were ideologically correct?

    Was it purely my racism when I looked at the conflict in Northern Ireland between the IRA/PIRA and Loyalists and concluded according to the holy texts they supposedly ascribed to, they weren’t ideologically correct?

    Let my “legion of racial stereotypes” cast a wider net. As a Naval Intelligence Officer (which I’m not any more as I’ve been retired for almost a decade) looking at North Korea, is it off limits for me to study Juche? A NORK would hit you if you told him he had a religion, but the next day he’d dutifully go off to worship the embalmed body the “eternal president” Kim Il Sung, passing signs that say, “Kim Il Sung is always with us.” The same claim made by Jesus Christ, who, BTW claimed to be God. And that same NORK that insists he’s an atheist will also make pilgrimages to other holy sites like Mt. Paektu, etc., where supernatural portents associated with the births and deaths of the exalted Kims had been witnessed. Even the birds of the air, swallows and Cranes, were observed worshiping the Kims.

    Would you, as theoretically a beneficiary of the national defense that I’m supposed to be providing, between gay/women in combat/transgender sensitivity and white privilege Maoist degradation training sessions, want me to know something about Juche? As if knowing something about a potential adversary’s motivating ideology and play book is off limits. Or would that make you racist. Oh, so racisty racist.

    Would you prefer me to be like the clueless FBI agents who got the phone call from the Russians who told them Tsarnaev had visited a war zone to study Jihad and apparently concluded, “Great, this guy is training to conduct an internal struggle to subdue his sinful desires according to my CAIR/Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-approved anti-terrorism trainers, let’s let him back in and suspend all surveillance?”

    Is it racist for me to culturally appropriate Sriracha sauce and put it on my Spam. I learned in the Navy that I could eat almost anything as long as I put enough hot sauce on it. But as a white guy who is descended from a bunch of people other white guys considered African enough to be the target of the largest mass lynching in US history in 1891 in New Orleans only use Tobasco or Louisiana hot sauce?

    If cultural appropriation is wrong when do we get our vaccines and Orville Wright developed aircraft back? Or is it racist of me to object to people flying in on aircraft to lecture me on cultural appropriation? Let me know before I microwave a burrito.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  462. Many like to assail anti- semitism because it’s bigoted, even though not all Jews are semitic..

    All Arabs are Semitic.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 10/22/2017 @ 11:23 am

    Yes. Like Jews, they’re Semitic. As in, Caucasians just like me. Work that into your racial theories while I walk to Kroger to culturally appropriate some Valentina sauce to put on my culturally appropriated burritos.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  463. You can’t help but conflate all Muslims as Jihadi when it’s the same percentage of militants as we have in Paddock- type sociopaths. Would you enjoy that generality?

    Ben burn (b3d5ab) — 10/22/2017 @ 11:21 am

    Haven’t left yet. I had to respond to this. You are a sick, twisted, demented, and stupid individual. I never generalized about all Muslims. I said that certain Muslims that do certain things will cite their core religious texts to justify their actions. And I, or you or anybody, can look at those same core religious texts. And they’re right, it’s in there. It’s how I learned certain Arabic terms such as al-Azl.

    It’s in both Sahih al Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. I forget at the moment where it is in al Bukhari but in Muslim it’s in the ironically named Book of Marriage, the only entry in the chapter on coitus interruptus.

    Now, educate me, Burnie bro. Where did Jesus express an opinion on how best to rape your captive women to get the best price for them at the nearest slave market? Because Muhammad did just that.

    But I never said all Muslims think like that. That’s simply the conclusion that your sick, twisted, cockroach brain arrived at. The vast majority of Muslims live far better lives than their prophet. Which is why groups like the Islamic State want to kill them.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  464. Bowe Bergdahl: US treated me worse than the Taliban

    The 31-year-old sergeant told British TV journalist Sean Langan in an interview reported in The Sunday Times of London: “At least the Taliban were honest enough to say, ‘I’m the guy who’s gonna cut your throat.’ ”

    That got him less upset than the “administrative duties” the Army assigned him while awaiting trial, he said.

    “Here, it could be the guy I pass in the corridor who’s going to sign the paper that sends me away for life,’’ he said.

    “We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs.”

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/22/2017 @ 8:37 am

    Last words of every Nazi infiltrator in US uniform sabotaging the American response to the Third Reich’s Ardennes offensive. The boys of Bastogne are in short supply these days so let me fill in. He deserves a summary court martial, a blind-fold, cigarette, and a wall to be shot against.

    He got Americans killed.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  465. Back from Kroger, obviously. Where they have whole aisles devoted to culturally appropriating foodstuffs from under-represented ethnicities who desperately want us to culturally appropriate their produce. And it I can’t culturally appropriate it at Kroger I’ve got several Hispanic and Asian markets within five minutes.

    Soes I got the Valentina sauce.

    Where’s Burnie?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  466. Valentina’s good but it’s not made in America 🙁

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  467. Valentina’s good but it’s not made in America 🙁
    happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/22/2017 @ 2:27 pm

    I know that Mr. Feets that’s why I’m a shameless cultural appropriator of hot sauces and latin women like Shakira and Toyota trucks and Honda Preludes.

    I have WHITE PRIVILEGE!

    Just who do you think you’re talking to? Why. Why. I’ll have you sent down to my plantation where I can enjoy your lamentations as you labor in my fields from the porch while I sip Mint Julips. If you don’t watch yourself.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  468. Me and the rest of the trailer park trash Williamson talks about at NRO have that kind of power.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  469. President Trump says we should buy American so we can maga

    so i try to live how he says

    he doesn’t know me but I like to think if he did he’d be very pleased with how good i adhere on the maga lifestyle

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  470. I knew a guy in West Texas who was a subcontractor for Dish Network.

    He told me about the time he had to install the dish on the roll bar of a guy’s truck because there was nothing more substantial to put it on. So every time the guy went to work or something he had to unplug the cable from his truck.

    I love America. You can probably get really good BBQ nearby. Plus when they find out you have a gun in the bag because you’re going hunting the only question the police ask is, “Hey, what caliber are you using.”

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  471. I must have met the only black family in Wyoming.

    In a Chinese restaurant.

    I recall shortly after leaving town coming over up over a rise. And there was a sign for a truckstop. It slowly revealed itself.

    Gas.

    Beer.

    Guns.

    It warmed the cockles of my heart. I bet you didn’t know I had a heart, Mr. feets. Or that it had cockles. But at least now you know why I never got invited to the Weinstein c*&^fest suite at Cannes or Sundance. Because nobody there (LOL) likes guns.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  472. wyoming tried to kill me

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  473. Get in line.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  474. What do you do during the summer in Wyoming, Mr. Feets?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  475. this was winter and i was in my lil scoot scoot

    it was a cold but clear day and it was christmas day too so I had devil’s tower all to my self and it was wonderful and beautiful and there were many wildlifes and it was so so cold

    so i had to get in my scoot

    stupid stupid i remember i passed a couple of those make-shift motels what look like they’re strung together from temporary buildings

    but i just wanted to head south a ways

    got caught in a blizzard couldn’t see nothin

    couldn’t stop nowheres

    the big rigs kept whiting me out

    i said JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL and he did

    don’t know how he done it but he got me to Casper

    rather fond of Jesus since then

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  476. Wyoming. Choose your ride. Which horse do you want? Widowmaker, Deathstar, or Rattler?

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  477. Wrong answer, Mr. feets.

    In Wyoming, if summer falls on a Saturday, you have a BBQ!

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  478. horses terrify me they’re too large number one

    i did track some wild ones once for a few miles until they let me approach and they were nice we just hung out for awhile

    they had a lot of flies, these horses did

    and they made these gawping squelching noises as they walked through the mud

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  479. that was my only time i ever did in wyoming

    i’ll go back for sure someday

    i love the open spaces

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  480. Where is burnie bro?

    I guess he didn’t enjoy the certainty of getting obliterated.

    Today I reminded myself how to meet a higher class of people than I encounter on-line.

    I went to Waffle House.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  481. Steve57 (0b1dac) — 10/20/2017 @ 3:00 pm

    And when the senior official calls they have somebody else set up the call before telling the individual to stand by for the President (or whatever the senior official’s job title happens to be).

    It’s for this reason that Donald Trump might have been uncertain whom he was talking to.

    But I don’t know that’s the reason he said “Your Guy: (not confirmed, but not denied, either)

    It could be

    A) He wasn’t sure if they were legally married (that might be a requirement to get the call, because otherwise it might be considered a violation of privacy) but, if so, Donald trump wouldn’t know this.

    B) He has some aphasia and couldn’t think of any other word to use.

    C) He wasn’t sure what kind of relative he was talking to.

    D) He’s just used to using the expression “your guy” because in a lot of cases he wasn”t dealing with legally married employees.

    Sammy Finkelman (de36da)

  482. …The Congresswoman’s claim was that Trump said “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” The controversial part of that was “he knew what he signed up for.”…

    What in the h3ll is controversial about this,

    What’s more, she expressed a similar thought herself two years ago, at the dedication of the building that was being named for the 2 FBI men killed in a shootout with bank robbers in 1986:

    Most men and women in law enforcement leave their homes for work knowing that there is a possibility they may not return.

    That’s in the last paragraph of New York Times article (the lead front page article Saturday!) about the video refuting what John Kelly said.

    I think this was actually said first with regard to people in law enforcemnt who died in the line of duty.

    Against that, maybe only military families would know that. Maybe La David T. Johnson had to be encouraged to go into this. Maybe even by the Congresswoman.

    It was an elite unit, and many men like being in an elite unit – because their contribution is so much more significant, for one thing – but it may not be realized that elite units have a higher death rate.

    Sammy Finkelman (de36da)

  483. I signed the contract to join the Navy just a few months after an Iraqi jet put two Exocet missiles in the USS Stark, incinerating 37 men to death and wounding 21 others. Most of the wounded, yes, very badly burned.

    Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger somehow blamed Iran for that – even after it became clear what happened, the U.S. Navy was still put on alert against Iran, and then an Iranian passenger jet carrying every many Revolutionary Guards was shot down – which caused Ayatollah Khomeini to end the Iran-Iraq war, and maybe also, plot the downing of Pan Am 103. (by Syria, but Syria couldn’t do it, couldn’t get the bomb aboard the plane, so they turned to Libya, and later, in 1989, Libya exploded a bomb aboard a French plane in Africa just to take the blame entirely on itself by “proving” it had an independent motive.)

    Sammy Finkelman (de36da)

  484. …She did a bit of boasting about getting the dedication legislation passed, sure, but it was otherwise a very nice speech and totally misrepresented by our storied retired general…

    About getting the building named for those two men.

    The Whiote House last week was saying that general Kelly was sticking to his story, and that she (must have?) said something like that (about pleading with President Obama?) in some speech not on that tape.

    Any amount of boasting would have caused me to tune this Congresswoman or any politician out and force me to wonder, “Who the h3ll does she think she is?” After tuning her out I’m sure I wouldn’t have heard the rest of it, either.

    That may have happened with Kelly, but it behooves him to admit it.

    Sammy Finkelman (de36da)

  485. I see Sammeh has shown up. God bless him. But still no burnie bro.

    Should someone get serious about stopping me, it’s easy to do. H3ll, I tell you how to do it. The fly in the ointment is that should you try to interpret the core original texts differently than I do I can demonstrate that over over the millenia both Sunni and Shia would have executed you as a heretic.

    Do your worst. Burnie bro did and failed. But what evs.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  486. I should have said the core formational texts of Islam. I don’t believe any of it is original.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  487. 507. Steve57 (0b1dac) — 10/23/2017 @ 10:01 am

    over over the millenia both Sunni and Shia would have executed you as a heretic.

    To be a heretic, you have to be a Moslem to begin with. And it apostates who could get executed. (still theoretically true, today, but, except maybe for ISIS, governments always somehow manage to avoid that, Sometimes by engineering a recantattion, sometimes by arranging an emigration.)

    Even Iran doesn’t execute convicted apostates I think. There was this pastor accused of being an apostate Moslem – the defense was that he never was a Moslem (only past the age of 14 counts by the way, that’s why Obama never got accused of that, plus they knew what would get them into trouble.)

    I don’t think this pastor was sentenced to death. You may remember the case.

    Now, outside the law that happen, especially in Pakistan, and not to Moalems (there just aren’t
    any apostate Moslems * – people become secular, and they tend to leave them alone – but not other religion. But non-Moslems get accused of blasphemy, i.e. disparaging Islam. This is also a crime in Indonesia. Most of these cases are frame-ups – people just don’t do that sort of thing in those countries.

    * One exception was an Afghan. He converted to Christianity, then sought asylum in Europe. Members of his family were in Germany. Now The EU has a rule that someone must apply for asylum in the first safe country he reaches, so he was deported from Germany to Italy. Now he wasn’t cut out to be a lone immigrant, so he went to Pakistan, where his wife was from, and hid the fact that he had converted from his wife;s family. But just in case he should need to make another asylum claim, he kept the information about himself on a USB drive. He used to go to an Internet cafe. One day he left that USB drive at home, or maybe he always left it at home, but in any case a relative found it when he wasn’t home. They read it, discovered that he had converted, and killed him.

    Sammy Finkelman (de36da)


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